For me, this movie is hard to rate. There are different aspects that I really liked, but at the same time a number of aspects that I disliked.

What I liked:
- The psychodelic aspects of the movie, the crazy colorful lightning, the strange surreal subworlds, such as the water hole in the beginning, the cellars, the inbetween floors.
- The nightmare-like flair
- Perfect acting of part of the ensemble (i.e. Irene Miracle, Alida Valli, Sacha Pitoëff)
- Some of the strange scenes that this movie uses
- The ingenious soundtrack that leaps from classic to gothic rock; pretty great!

What I disliked:
- The sometimes really slow pace, that in some cases tend to boredom
- The story telling in it self; some scenes seem to be arbitrary and do not add anything to the movie, neither for the story nor for the esthetics. Especially while watching it the first time I felt a bit lost sometimes and wondered what has happend and why and why this is in any way important.
- The bad acting of some of the cast (i.e. Veronica Lazar, Leigh McCloskey, or Elenora Giorgi)
- The End (the transformation to "Death"... well... for 1980 that could have been done *much* better)

So all in all, I am torn between the greatness of this movie on the one side - the camera is ingenious, the music is great, parts of the acting is great some of the scenes are thrilling as hell - and on the other side some scenes that where boring, made no sense or consisted of bad acting.

It is better than average, so not a 5/10 but also not as great as it could be, which is why I ended up with a 6/10. (In comparison: 4 Flies: 6/10, Crystal Plumage: 7/10, Opera: 8/10).