A Disappointing Continuation

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Blistering performances.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

This movie was different than most horror movies as it didn't rely on a lot of gore and nudity along with adult language to make a good horror movie. It did however have a good script with several plot twists except for the ending which was too ambiguous in my opinion. The actors were all excellent in their roles and the cinematography was well done plus the dubbing was good which is why I gave it 7 stars.

Fine Italian-Spanish Giallo packed with thrills , chills ,intrigue and twists and turns . Entertaining Giallo full of vicious killings , suspense and eerie events . This genuinely mysterious story deals with a couple (Andres Resiono , Lisa Lombardi), lost in thick fog, take refuge in an old manor next to a cemetery . In the mansion strange things start to occur and happens several murders with bloody and gruesome executions. There someone is killing people and some clues seem to implicate about anybody are dieing . Before their unfortunate accident wreck , rich heiress, weak-hearted Elsa( Analía Gadé), recently recovering from a nervous breakdown due to the death of her daddy (George Rigaud) . In addition ,wealthy Elsa's husband (Albert Dalbes) is away frequently, so she usually thinks for him . Meanwhile another coupled called Mr & Mrs Tremont (Eduardo Fajardo & Yelena Samarina) also runs off the road and into an embankment near the graveyard , encountering two mysterious, enigmatic zombie-alike shrouded in darkness, one corpulent man dressed in chauffeur style and a pale-face woman slightly behind him . The trio encounters the mansion , discovering that the Tremonts inside, having been in a car crash with another driver , a sex-obsessed , drunk Mr. Porter(Franco Fantasia). This group finds that the mansion has an owner, the sinister Martha Clinton (Evelyn Stewart or Ida Galli), who bears remarkable resemblance to her deceased aunt condemned for vampirism and witchcraft . Meanwhile the series killer goes on a real massacre on various unfortunate victims as a woman is hung , another attacked in the graveyard . Slowly more people are found dead and Fred (Andres Resino) investigates the strange killings with numerous suspects .Successful Giallo is compellingly directed with well staged murders plenty of startling visual content , though was submitted to limited censorship in Spain . This is a customary Giallo where the intrigue, tension, suspense appear threatening and lurking in every room , corridors and luxurious interior and exterior . The picture packs atmospheric blending of eerie thrills and creepy chills combined with a twisted finale . It displays lots of guts and blood but it seems pretty mild compared to today's gore feasts . It's a solid movie , a thrilling story plenty of suspense and intrigue in which the victims seem to be continuous . The staged killings are the high points of the movie , they deliver the goods plenty of screams, shocks and tension . The intriguing moments are compactly made and fast moving ; as the film itself takes place from various red herrings . It packs tension, shocks , thrills, chills and a little bit of blood and gore . There's plenty of moments of excitement and a number of scenes that are quite thrilling , resulting to be definitely the spotlight of the film the surprising ending situation . Well filmed in location in Madrid and Guadalajara surroundings . Good ambiance design and acceptable production design by Perez Cubero who along with Galicia created lots of sets in several Western filmed in the 60s and 70s . Colorful and brilliant cinematography in Maria Bava style by Mancori . Frightening and thrilling musical score by the Italian Marcello Giombani.The picture is professionally directed by Francisco Lara Polop in his first and the best film along with the prolific filmmaker Pedro Lazaga . Francisco Lara's so-so direction is well crafted , here he's less cynical and more inclined toward suspense and lots of killings , he's an expert on comedy though directed another terror film as ¨The monk¨, his last movie . Talented and versatile writer/director Pedro Lazaga has made a vast array of often solid and entertaining films in all kind of genres but especially comedies starred by Spanish comedian Paco Martinez Soria and made a successful Peplum , ¨The seven Spartans¨. Rating: Acceptable and passable , this is one more imaginative Giallo pictures in which the camera stalks in sinister style throughout a story with magnificent visual skills. This is a bewildering story , funny in some moment but falls flat and it will appeal to hardcore Gialli fans

I just started working my way through the Chilling Classics 50 Movie Pack Collection and MURDER MANSION is the first movie in the set. MURDER MANSION is just my kind of old-fashioned, B-grade horror movie. It is an especially creepy thriller! In a series of convoluted happenstance, several people end up stranded in a mansion in the middle of nowhere. Apparently, to escape a fog-bound night, although one couple and a woman traveling alone claim to have been cut off by the same car – a Rolls Royce, no less! The mansion is next to a cemetery, where it seems that the undead abound… well, at least a chauffeur and his elderly mistress. Martha provides the back-story as one of vampires overrunning the town, which is used to explain the deserted village… but, hardly anyone is surprised to hear such a tale. Same with the story of her old Aunt, who is purported to be a witch. But, when Martha describes the death of her aunt; and, the death of her chauffeur, Elsa nearly suffers an apoplectic fit! Like other Italian horror films of its day, MURDER MANSION features beautiful cinematography. It also features a suitable mansion – surprisingly well-maintained public areas, sufficient living quarters; and, an abysmal cellar! The film is rather thin on plot; but, the dubbed-in dialogue (done after filming)is actually quite good.Ida Galli (Martha), Analía Gade (Elsa), and Lisa Leonardi (Laura) are exceptionally well cast; and, offer apt performances. The score can be a bit jarring; but, it serves the purpose of intensifying the atmosphere and the action.The film digresses into a sordid affair between Elsa's father and her classmate; a philandering, gun-toting drunk on the prowl for any woman with a pulse (or, perhaps without one); and, free-love between Fred and Laura, two young folks traveling by motorcycle.Yes, the plot reads more like a melodrama than a horror movie. But, I liked MURDER MANSION well enough.

This is the first movie on a set of 50 that i bought, and let's just say, we're not off to a good start. "The Murder Mansion" (as i bought it as) is many things. Confusing, boring, but by no means is it a horror film. It reminded me more of a heist movie than it did of a horror movie. and that's not a good thing.One of the biggest problems this movie had was that for the first hour nothing really happened. people talked (obviously dubbed by a lot of British people btw) a lot of flashbacks to when one of the main girls was in college despite the fact that she looked the same age in the flashback just with a shirley temple haircut, and a lot of sex (offscreen of course because that would make the movie interesting) When the characters are introduced i confuse them a LOT. i don't know who's who for the whole thing. they're very interchangeable and i don't know what's going on. one of the guys just vanishes for some reason, some girl's ex lover comes back for some reason all under the cover of a murderous scooby doo theme. i don't know WHY these people were killing people, all i know was it was very confusing. This movie is something that all horror movies shouldn't be. tremendously boring. the murder scenes come completely out of nowhere and one dude just dies from seeing a woman in a bad old lady mask. then again, maybe i'd have a heart attack too if i had to be in this stinker of a movie.There were also some interesting Day to Night shots when the film was obviously shot in the day but filtered for the night. and there was at least one scene when it was obviously daytime in the cemetery but they tried to pass it off as night. and it looked STUPID. If you're looking for a fun time at a horror movie, this isn't one. if you DO want to see this movie for the little but of fun it has, skip to 50 minutes in. here's all you need to know. people go to haunted house because of fog. people talk. there. now you're up to speed.one last thing. one of the weird things i noticed about this movie is that the main girl (at least i think she was) turns down this guy who wants to sleep with her after she gives him a ride saying "what kind of girl do you think i am?" so she decides to ride with another guy. yet later that night, she sleeps with the second guy who gives her a ride. so...she doesn't sleep with strangers who outright say "let's have sex" she only has it with strangers who DON'T say they want it. cause that makes sense. i don't know, maybe she has a thing for mustaches. whatever. that bugged me and it was stupid.The pacing of this movie is very poorly done. it's too boring for too long. there's a lot of info you DON'T need to know, and i assumed they were trying to go with some personal demon fightings with this one girl, but in the end it looked stupid.so you know what? unless you have it on the chilling classics 50 pack, don't bother watching it, it's not worth it. but if you really want to, the last 20 minutes aren't horrible, it's just confusing as all hell. So in conclusion, the murderous mansion gets 2 random dead people, out of 10.