Simply Perfect

best movie i've ever seen.

A lot of fun.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Continuing ICM's Italian and Cult challenges,I started looking for a series/collection I could watch. Whilst checking other titles,I found a Barbara Steele box set that I had picked up years ago,which led to me opening the set,by freeing the creatures from the grave.View on the film:Treating producer Ralph Zucker to the "credit" as he disowned the film, director Massimo Pupillo makes his dissatisfaction visible in the first half by overlaying a dominant narration,that drains the atmosphere from the crumbling Gothic Horror set. Opening the family graves in the second half, Pupillo pulls in the Gothic chills with a clever use of roaming shadows to represent the unseen monster, and sticky, plague-ridden practical effects revealing the marks they leave behind.Not working well with the rest of the cast/crew for 4 days until Pupillo had a massive row with her in front of everyone, Barbara Steele's more detached manner as Cleo Hauff actually works,thanks to it creating the impression of Hauff attempting to keep a dark family event secret from the creatures from the grave.

Being a Barbara Steele AND Italian Gothic horror fanatic, "Terror-Creatures from the Grave" has been standing on my must-see list for many years, and I also owned a bootleg copy on DVD, but it was literally unwatchable with picture quality as poor and diseased as the plague carriers the film revolves on. Now that I've finally watched a restored version, I still can't say I'm wildly enthusiast about the film even though it features everything that I usually seek for in horror cinema. Perhaps it's because I saw so many other Gothic horrors in between the time I first purchased and eventually watched "Terror Creatures from the Grave" or perhaps it's simply because the story never truly shifts into gear despite all its potential strong points. During the opening credits, and even proudly on the DVD-cover already, the movie claims to be inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Well, that's easy marketing! The script isn't an adaptation of one of his stories, but because Poe wrote about the Black Plague (undoubtedly the source is "The Masque of the Red Death") he gets mentioned as an inspiration and a much wider audience is attracted! Besides, who needs extra marketing when you've got the one and only Barbara Steele - at the peak of her popularity - starring in a bathtub sequence? The plot is chock-full of macabre elements and the atmosphere leaves plenty of space for ominous tension and supernatural strangeness that unfortunately never comes to the surface. Handsome young attorney Albert Kovac gets summoned to the estate of Professor Hauff for arranging his last will and testament, but upon his arrival Albert finds out that the good Prof has been dead for nearly a year. His beautiful second wife Cleo is skeptical and wary of Albert presence, but her equally attractive stepdaughter Corinne is delighted and even hopes for Albert to help solving the mystery surrounding her father's death. Albert finds out that the family mansion got built up from the remnants of an institution where 16th century plague carriers used to be locked away (that's just asking for trouble) and the Professor found a method to resurrect them from the death. With the first anniversary of the Professor's death approaching, several people who were close to him are dying in mysterious and gruesome ways. "Terror Creatures from the Grave" easily could have been a modest genre classic, what with its uncanny references towards the Black Plague and multiple eerie make-up effects, but the pacing is dreadfully slow and the script is far too talkative. Massimo Pupillo really should have studied the films of Mario Bava a little more carefully, and then he would have known that Italian Gothic horror primarily thrives on atmosphere, cinematography and better use of set pieces rather than on drivel. Mrs. Steele seems a lot less interested in her role here than, say, "Black Sunday" or "Castle of Blood", but even with a mediocre performance she still depicts an impressive wicked stepmother character.

What's Good About It: Barbara Steele and Mirella Maravidi - not necessarily in that order - atmospheric locations and interiors, bravura camera-work, colorful (if somewhat illogical) plot.What's Not So Good About It: Slack direction, poor editing and a less than spectacular climax.If you haven't already seen this film a "spoilers alert" may applyMirella Maravidi (a.k.a) Marilyn Mitchell is an attractive romantic lead who can look convincingly frightened and is obviously enthusiastic about the project. Barbara Steele, on the other hand, seems less enthusiastic about playing, yet again, the adulterous wife. However, her under-played characterisation contrasts well with that of her excitable step-daughter, and her death scene is very effective.One of the key features of "Cinque Tombe" is the choice of locations and Carlo Di Palma's lighting of them. The action takes place early in the last century during the winter - a most suitable time of year to set a horror film. The Villa Hauff, where much of the drama takes place, makes use of Castel Castelfusano - a building with a bizarre truncated shape. The prologue of the U.S. version shows a terrified man hurrying from a tavern late at night through deserted cobblestone streets and down a wide flight of steps. This sequence is ominously lit and conveys a real sense of menace. In contrast, later on in the film, the lake beside which Mirella Maravidi and Walter Brandt walk as their relationship develops is bathed in winter sunlight. In the exhumation scene, a gray mist drifts across a line of gaunt trees that form a backdrop to the cemetery. This location is also overshadowed by an odd-shaped "capella". The interiors are also superbly fitted out: the walls of Villa Hauff are like an art gallery. The Apothecary's store is lined with wooden chests of drawers and glass jars. The fireplace in Stinel's sparsely-furnished living room is used to frame a glamor shot and, later on, the aftermath of a suicide. In addition to the atmospheric lighting, Carlo di Palma occasionally treats us to some startling camera-work, such as a sequence quite early on in the film that begins with a high angle long shot of a departing horse and trap, followed by a big close-up of Barbara Steele's eyes as she watches and then turns as the camera draws back to show her furtively examining papers in Walter Brandt's briefcase. As director, Ralph Zucker should have tightened the script - which is essentially a tale of revenge that goes out of control - before starting. He should also have removed some of the more obviously illogical aspects of the plot - for example, if the plague-spreaders had their hands severed before they were hanged and buried in unconsecrated ground, how come it's their hands we see reaching out from their graves! In several scenes, most notably that of the town clerk's office, the dialog needs condensing to prevent the pace from flagging. If the failure to do this was because of pressure or inexperience, the editor should have been able to tighten the scenes. Unfortunately, the editing - especially in the second half - looks more like a basic assembly job than skilled cutting. Unnecessary "cover shots" are left in: when the shock discovery of an empty grave prompts the hero to phone his business partner, we don't need to see him leaving the graveyard to locate a phone - you can cut straight to him making the call! A shot of mummified hands inside a glass case coming to life, if kept short, can be scary; a prolonged tracking shot of all the hands wriggling (and doing nothing more) is not. Now, if one of those hands had suddenly smashed through the glass.... As far as the disappointing climax is concerned, it looks as if the film either fell seriously behind schedule and/or ran out of money. The final scenes look hastily improvised. If the director hadn't intended to show the plague-spreaders at the climax, it was a mistake to show one of their disfigured hands after Stinel's suicide. A partial manifestation two-thirds of the way through the film leads us to expect to see more later on. When this doesn't happen, we feel let down.In spite of its faults, "Cinque Tombe Per Un Medium" or "Terror Creatures From The Grave" has a lot going for it. If Ralph Zucker had had more experience, a less restrictive budget and a better editor, the film might have been a minor classic. As it stands, I believe this is a case of a film being saved by atmospheric locations, an imaginative lighting cameraman and a couple of enthusiastic actors.

An atmospheric, at times startling, and continuously mysterious and involving picture, 1965's "Terror-Creatures From the Grave" nevertheless turns out to be a somewhat tarnished gem in the crown for the so-called Queen of Horror, Barbara Steele. In the film, hunky leading man Walter Brandi arrives at the moldering mansion of Jeronimus Hauff, in the year 1911. An attorney, he learns from Hauff's widow (our Babs) that her scientist/spiritualist husband has been dead for almost a full year, and was thus incapable of summoning anyone to his house. But when Hauff's grave turns out to be empty, and all his old "friends" start dying one by one, Hauff's demise--or possible return from the dead--becomes open for debate. Into this moody stew, director Massimo Pupillo blends some eerie music (courtesy of Aldo Piga, and including a haunting medieval tune regarding "pure water") as well as some mild gross-out sequences: a hoofed-out eye cavity, an acid-scarred face, leaking guts after a saber impalement, and quivering boils on a plague victim's face. The film also boasts some effective B&W lensing and realistically run-down set decoration. As for our Barbara, although she is absent from the screen for at least half of the picture, she makes a decided impression with what time she has. Just look at the expression on her face during and just after her death scene...not for nothing has she been called the Queen of Horror! On the down side, the ending of this film is a terribly rushed affair, concluding with a lame deus ex machina windup not to be believed. Worse, we never even get to see those "terror-creatures from the grave"...only their deformed hands as the camera lets us observe from their POV. I cannot imagine any horror fan being completely satisfied with this denouement. Still, all in all, pretty effective stuff, especially for lovers of '60s Italian horror or Ms. Steele. Oh...and some more bad news. This DVD comes to us courtesy of those indolent underachievers at Alpha Video, with a fairly damaged print and lousy dubbing. If ever a horror film warranted a loving restoration....