Before SE7EN, the devil had a more enticing way of dealing with sinners in THE DEVIL'S NIGHTMARE, on Blu-ray from Mondo Macabro.

Six passengers on a bus tour of the Rhineland are detoured by a closed bridge and directed by a creepy shepherd (Daniel Emilfork, TRANS-EUROPE-EXPRESS) to the castle of Baron Von Rhoneburg (Jean Servais, RIFIFI) as night falls. They arrive to discover that someone has already called ahead and even given their names. Butler Hans (Maurice De Groote) notes the various grisly crimes that have occurred through the centuries in the bedrooms hatchet-faced housekeeper Martha (Yvonne Garden) has prepared for them. Over dinner, the Baron tells them about the family curse stemming from a twelfth century pact with the devil for which in return the eldest daughter of each generation would become a succubus, using her body to lead sinful men into perdition. With the late arrival of temptress Lisa (Erika Blanc, THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE), the evening seems ripe for reckoning as bus driver Duchos (Christian Maillet, THE BLUE VILLA) stuffs himself, Nancy (Colette Emmanuelle, THE KING IS DANCING) becomes avaricious at the possibility of the baron's experiments in alchemy turning lead into gold, her husband Howard (Lorenzo Terzon, LADY FRANKENSTEIN) schedules a midnight assignation with bisexual Corinne (Ivana Novak, STUNT SQUAD), Regine (Shirley Corrigan, DR. JEKYLL AND THE WEREWOLF) makes it an early night, grumpy Masson (Lucien Raimbourg, SWORDS OF BLOOD) finds fault with everything, and seminary student Alban (Jacques Monseau) starts having impure thoughts about Lisa. As a storm rages outside, Lisa sets about making sure the devil gets his due.

Although generally regarded as an Italian horror film, THE DEVIL'S NIGHTMARE is a co-production and one of the small handful of fantastique films to come out of Belgium despite their rich literary tradition (its few contemporaries including Harry Kümel's DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS and MALPERTUIS). Apart from Blanc and the score by Ennio Morricone collaborator Alessandro Alessandroni (THE MAD BUTCHER) – which is either taken from the same library scoring sessions of tracks heard in the Greek sexploitation film THE WILD PUSSYCAT or based on the same compositions and reworked with more acid-tinged instrumentation – very little feels Italian about the film. The sex is rather tame, the make-up effects are crude, and in-camera opticals are admirable but rough (the heightened resolution of the HD transfer makes it evident that one shot the places Blanc or her stand-in in the same shot as an optical is not some ambitious bit of bluescreen but literally the performer filmed standing in front of a back projection playback of the optical). While the storytelling feels a bit clumsy in the English dub, the film in French plays like a straight-faced French farce of a Gothic horror parody and may have started out that way before the producers realized that a straightforward horror film would export better. There is much to admire from Blanc's central performance, Emilfork's presence, the atmospheric castle location, some macabre touches in the art direction of Jio Berk – whose ventures in the fantastique also included Jean Rollin's THE NUDE VAMPIRE and his expressionistic LES DEMONIAQUES – and the use of the seven deadly sins motif marking most of the victims specifically while retaining some ambiguity. As far as Italian exploitation goes, the film would be best double-billed with THE SENSUOUS DOLL/THE RED-HEADED CORPSE also featuring Blanc (in the same belly-bearing dress) and Novak, or perhaps Tonino Cervi's QUEENS OF EVIL. While director Jean Brismée directed no other feature films, writer Patrice Rhomm would direct ELSA FRAULEIN S.S. for Eurocine and co-producer Charles LeCocq directed the sexploitation film LE TANGO DE LA PERVERSION (released in the U.K. as SEX CRAZY to prevent confusion with the Greek film TANGO OF PERVERSION).

Initially released theatrically in the United States by Hemisphere Pictures as DEVIL'S NIGHTMARE and reissued a number of times throughout the seventies and eighties including a Motion Picture Marketing release as VAMPIRE PLAYGIRLS, DEVIL'S NIGHTMARE received numerous VHS releases throughout the eighties. The "official" release – in that it featured the release title came from Monterey Home Video, but it was most likely to be found under the video-generated title THE DEVIL WALKS AT MIDNIGHT from labels like Saturn Productions, Regal Video, and Interglobal Home Video (all three companies having also released TORTURE CHAMBER OF DR. SADISM as CASTLE OF THE WALKING DEAD, THE STRANGE VICE OF SIGNORA WARDH as BLADE OF THE RIPPER, THE CREATURE FROM BLACK LAKE as DEMON OF THE LAKE, and ASSAULT as CREEPERS). These editions varied in completeness with Regal dispensing with the prologue and credits, Interglobal inserting the scene of the bus arriving at the castle before the credits and inserting the prologue into the middle of the first scene, while another VHS with the video-burn title SUCCUBUS featured the prologue in its correct position but had some censorious splices during Blanc's nude scene. Another American VHS edition was titled CASTLE OF DEATH as part of the "Facing All Death" which also featured retitlings of KISS DADDY GOODBYE, BLOOD SHACK, BRAIN OF BLOOD, and MONSTROID. Even the most complete American release, however, turned out to be incomplete in that it did not include an extension of the rather tame lesbian scene which featured some actual topless nudity.

This sequence first turned up stateside in Midnight Video's composite VHS of the Japanese cassette and a Greek-subtitled edition, and was restored to the film's official American VHS and DVD release from Image Entertainment as part of their Redemption Films line. Redemption's 1.66:1 non-anamorphic transfer utilized the Italian title sequence which crowed all of the credits up front. The alternate unsubtitled Italian track revealed some different placements of music and the absence of some sound effects. A remaster was a long time coming with the only anamorphic transfer appearing in the UK from magazine Dark Side's DVD offshoot which just anamorphically converted a number of Redemption's non-anamorphic transfers of films like this and the works of Jean Rollin. Redemption gave up the rights to a Belgian owner rather than engage in costly litigation over the ownership, and it would not be until the end of 2018 that a Blu-ray edition was finally announced. Before the standard edition went up for pre-order, Mondo Macabro released a limited edition red case edition with an exclusive slipcase, alternate cover art, booklet, and lobby card reproductions. The standard edition's video content is identical.

Mondo Macabro offers branching options for separate English and French versions that appear visually identical. The 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.66:1 widescreen transfer does not utilize the Italian source materials and indeed appears to be a composite of different sources with slight fluctuations in color and saturation, and frequent but light damage. The colors are richer than the DVD transfer but do not really pop. Although the transfer has undergone some digital cleanup and color correction, most of the blame can go to the green-biased Agfa Gevaert stock (director Brismée mentions that the producer used the stock when the local branch offered to pay for the processing) and the 1970s wardrobe choices and hideous interior decorating of the film's few sets. The opening credits in both versions are in French apart from the title card DEVIL'S NIGHTMARE and the end credits are in English, which is the way it appeared on Commander USA's Groove Movies in the eighties while the various video versions had full English opening and closing credits. The English and French LPCM 1.0 mono tracks are fairly clean, with the latter revealing some different musical choices during scenes which unfold with only sound effects on the English track including the introduction of the passengers on the bus and the first part of the drive to the castle, while the moaning of Howard and Corinne is mixed much lower on the French track that one what Masson was fussing about. Blanc's character is also called Hilse on the French track. English subtitles are optional on the English version and forced on the French version. A warning before both French and English versions notes the imperfections of the source but fans of the film will find the disc a welcome upgrade over everything that has come before.

The English version is accompanied by an audio commentary by film historian Troy Howarth who also notes the paucity of Belgium fantastique films, Alessandroni's score being emblematic of prime Eurocult, and the theme of travel in genre films of the period and modern-day tourists stumbling into dangers from the past. Although he does note the presence of Belgian funding in some Jess Franco films, he does not note that DEVIL'S NIGHTMARE Belgian production company Cetelci was the co-producer of Franco's EXORCISM; on the other hand, in discussing the Italian producer who was also behind FOUR TIMES THAT NIGHT, he refutes IMDb's claim that producer "Claudio Rainis" was actually Dick Randall (PIECES). His likening the film specifically to THE OLD DARK HOUSE (as opposed to the "old dark house" genre) does suggest that the film may have been more inspired by those films rather than the Italian gothics of the previous decade or even VAMPIRE'S NIGHT ORGY with its busload of tourists waylaid into the supernatural.

The disc also includes three valuable video interviews. Brismée may only have directed a single feature film but the interview (32:40) reveals his importance in Belgian cinema as the founder of the Belgian film school INSAS (there actually was a film school but it was Catholic, and the need for a state school meant founding two to cater to the French-speaking Walloon region and the Flemish-speaking Flanders one). Brismée had directed an award-winning short among others and was contacted by dropout student Charles LeCocq to come in and fix a film that had been rejected by the Flemish commission, which he did in a week with a complete reshoot without looking at rushes. The film was well-received enough for LeCocq to contact him again about directing THE DEVIL'S NIGHTMARE. The commission had their doubts since he had not directed a feature before, but he reveals that consulting director André Hunebelle (O.S.S. 117) was only on the set for a day. Assistant director/second-unit director Robert Lombaerts appears in another interview (23:04) in which he reveals that he had been a classmate of LeCocq, actor Monseau, and editor Panos Papakyriakopoulos (who had reportedly worked for Elia Kazan in Hollywood before finishing his studies in Belgium) at INSAS and that the slowness of cinematographer André Goeffers lead to him being assigned second unit duties including scenes that Brism lead to him being assigned second unit duties including scenes that Brismée did not want to shoot, specifically the lesbian scene.