While she does portray a newlywed, Rossana Podesta does not play the title role. The title actually refers to the torture device better known as the iron maiden. I have know way of knowing if John Schlesinger was thinking of this film with the horror film segment in Darling, but through the first hour of Virgin of Nuremburg, Podesta's costume consists of her frilly, somewhat suggestive nightgown. A spirit from the past, known as The Punisher, has come back to make use of the torture devices in the castle Podesta now calls home.

While lack of logic has never gotten in the way of my enjoying a horror film, my big problem is that trying to make this particular villain sympathetic is the most tortured element of Virgin of Nuremburg. The Punisher turns out to be Podesta's father-in-law, a former Nazi officer. In the most gruesome part of the film, we are provided with a back story that tells of how the man was one of several officers who attempted to kill Hitler rather than continue fighting. This particular officer was operated on while alive and surgically altered to look almost like Max Schreck in Nosferatu. Perhaps Virgin of Nuremburg in Italian was different regarding this part of the narrative, but in the dubbed English version, I saw a guy who never learned the lesson of karmic payback.

There is some fun to see the actor, billed as "Cristopher Lee", as a menacing presence with his scarred face. Riz Ortolani's jazzy score seems out of place when the screen image is of the iron maiden, but on its own terms makes this film more interesting to listen to than actually see.