En route to a lumber yard in Zehdenick to make a deal, businessman Nicola (Gianni Garko, BODY PUZZLE) runs his car off the road while trying to avoid hitting a gypsy woman (Maria Monti, A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE) who mysteriously vanishes. On foot, Nicola eventually happens upon the home of the Ciuvalek family, seemingly the only people still living in a burnt-out village whose population were scared off by local superstitions. Patriarch Gorca (William Vanders, THE DAMNED) - who has just buried his brother - offers Nicola the shelter in his home until eldest son Jovan (Roberto Maldera, THE VATICAN AFFAIR) can fix his car. As night sets in, Nicola notices that the family bar the doors and windows, and refuse to acknowledge what he perceives to be someone outside the door, but is sufficiently captivated by Gorca's daughter Sdenka (Agostina Belli, HOLOCAUST 2000) to ask too many questions. The next day, a cryptic Gorca sets off into the woods with a wooden stake and Jovan tells him to not bother returning if he does not get back by six o'clock. Irina (Cinzia de Carolis, CAT O'NINE TAILS), daughter of Gorca's dead brother and his buxom wife Elena (Teresa Gimpera, SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE), tells Nicola about a bloodthirsty witch who lives in the woods who attacks at night; and Gorca's other son Vlado (Luis Suárez, FEAST OF SATAN) let slip some family secrets. Nicola laughs off the superstition until six approaches and the family apprehensively awaits Gorca's return (with Jovan sharpening another stake)...

NIGHT OF THE DEVILS was adapted from Alexei Tolstoy's French-language story "The Family of the Vourdalak", which was also the source for Mario Bava's "The Wurdalak" segment of his anthology BLACK SABBATH/THE THREE FACES OF FEAR. Although this feature-length version feels more than a little drawn-out and compares poorly to Bava's masterful short, there is still much for the horror fan to savor. Whereas director Giorgio Ferroni's previous gothic horror entry MILL OF THE STONE WOMEN was drenched in Bava-esque Technicolor cinematography, the Spanish/Italian co-produced NIGHT OF THE DEVILS has a bit more of the rustic, mossy feel of Spanish horror films of the period (cinematographer Manuel Berenguer also shot Narciso Ibáñez Serrador's THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED) - Ferroni's vampires also seem to have more in common with those seen in Amando de Ossorio's NIGHT OF THE SORCERERS, and Leon Klimovsky's WEREWOLF SHADOW or NIGHT OF THE WALKING DEAD - but Giorgio Gaslini's lyrical score leans back towards the Italianate. Garko was better known for spaghetti westerns (notable the SARTANA series) and Gimpera's career shifted back and forth between arthouse and exploitation (and the very amusing hybrid THE EXQUISITE CADADER by Vicente Aranda), but Umberto Raho - who plays a psychiatrist - was a very familiar presence in just about every sub-genre of Italian exploitation (Raho also appeared with Maldera in THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE). The film has a good share of gore (courtesy of E.T.'s Carlo Rambaldi) in the second half, the protagonist's delirious visions in the opening of a woman's face blasted apart, a heart pulled out of a chest cavity, a worm-eaten skull, and skull-masked cultists pawing nude women are not a preview of things to come (in fact, the effects bits look more like test footage pressed into service to liven up the first act).