Well Deserved Praise

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

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.

This film immediately differs itself from the usual Gothic horror films by having a terrified man run away from a strange creature and get his head smashed to bits by a startled horse. Thus starts Terror Creatures From the Grave, a film that wouldn't be out of place being produced about fifteen years later.A lawyer is sent a letter from a client but the lawyer is out of town. His assistant opens the letter and finds a demand from a client called Doctor Hauff that the lawyer better high tail it over to his creepy mansion as soon as possible or else. With the lawyer out of town, his assistant decides to go instead.The lawyer heads to the mansion only to find Doctor Hauff's daughter, a freaked out maid, and the Hauff's wife (Barbara Steele, in full Bitch mode) who states that it would be a bit weird for her husband to send a letter out seeing he died after taking a drunken spill down a flight of steps almost a year ago. The lawyer is all like 'whatever' until he finds he can't leave as an owl has become trapped in the engine of his car (What?).Things aren't what they seem as the mansion has mute servant Luciano Pagozzi lurking about pulling faces, and there's a phonograph recording by Dr Hauff detailing how he's managed to contact the spirits of plague bearer who were infecting people on purpose with the plague (which explains all the mummified hands on display in the mansion's main hall).Also unnerving is the unexplained deaths of the witnesses who were there on the night Dr Hauff died, but did he die? And why are the plague-bearers coming back to life? And why aren't the villagers remotely surprised by any of this? This is probably the earliest example of the pure Italian horror that we would be receiving in the eighties courtesy of Lucio Fulci and Umberto Lenzi. We have an almost non-sensical supernatural storyline that some character attempt to unravel which is really an excuse for some gory deaths. Eyeballs hang from eyesockets, guts protrude from stomachs, buboes burst and drip - in 1965! There are scenes from here that turn up in The Beyond (acid burning a corpse's face) and The Evil Dead (a character listening to a recording of someone contacting demons). It would be easy to say this was an influence on those films, but who knows really? Probably the creepiest, most violent Gothic Horror I've laid eyes on, Terror Creatures is a good starting point for anyone interested in this particular period in Italian Horror. Do note however that possibly the only version out there is blurry, glitch, and with bad sound. Also note however that this is the kind of Italian film where a mere TWO of the cast are left alive at the end.HOWEVER: There is a restored version on YouTube that I watched some of. It has an extended scene at the start with the lawyer receiving the letter, an extended, and creepier, journey to the mansion, an actual shot of the dead owl in the guy's engine (what?), omits the horse killing at the start. I'd like to see a remastered DVD that keeps the best elements of both versions. Thanks. ETC.I forgot about the pure water song! It goes - Pure Wa-

When an attorney arrives to do business with the owner of an estate, he learns that the man is dead. However, he's been dead a year and the letter was only sent recently! The signature and seal appear real...how could this be? Instead of just going back home (like any normal person), the attorney hangs about for some time--and people begin to die. Could this dead man who was apparently obsessed with contacting the souls of dead plague victims be reaching from beyond the grave for revenge? Well, considering the film stars Barbara Steel, who made a career out of Italian horror films, you can probably assume the worst.Although I like horror movies, I sure found my attention waning throughout the film. Much of it was because the script was pretty dull and convoluted and much of it was the cheapness of the production. Either way, Steele fanatics might be the only ones who really like this one.

With my viewing of this film, I am left with just one of Barbara Steele's Italian Gothic Horror vehicles i.e. THE SHE-BEAST (1966), actually helmed by cult British director Michael Reeves. As for Massimo Pupillo, he made three such efforts back-to-back, all released in the same year: this being the first (though, apparently, he was dissatisfied with the final result and allowed the film's producer – American Ralph Zucker – to take credit for it!), the second the notorious THE BLOODY PIT OF HORROR (which I watched not too long ago) and the last was THE VENGEANCE OF LADY MORGAN (to be checked out presently). To get back to its star, this is among her lesser titles: actually, she does not even feature all that much in it (though I understand the British actress only did a day's work on THE SHE-BEAST!). Still, the film – inspired by an unidentified Edgar Allan Poe story (more likely, it is a fusion of several) – exudes plenty of typical atmosphere (again, accentuated by the fuzzy 16mm print which however also reveals a few audio glitches). The plot – by the way, the original moniker translates to FIVE GRAVES FOR A MEDIUM – involves (as had been the case with the recently-viewed THE UNNATURALS {1969}, with which it also shares character actor Luciano Pigozzi) a deceased occultist's revenge upon his six {sic} murderers on the anniversary of the event; the titular zombies, then, are plague victims who rise up from the dead to exact this reckoning (only we never get to see them since the climactic onslaught is done via P.O.V. shots). Steele was the man's second wife but she is cheating on him with a friend (Riccardo Garrone); the latter is a lawyer summoned to the estate but, being away on business, his associate turns up instead and conveniently ends up falling for Steele's step-daughter (whom she obviously begrudges): of course, the younger couple emerge the only survivors – thanks to a cleansing downpour – in the contrived and abrupt finale. Like ATOM AGE VAMPIRE (1960; which I watched a day earlier), this is no genre classic but, for true aficionados of Horror, proves an irresistible treat nonetheless.