Welcome back to my Dark Corner of this Sick World.
'Nobody ever comes here.'
Beginning with Mario Bava’s Black Sunday,
English actor. Barbara Steele popped up in a series of Italian horrors through the 1960s,
some of which have become classics others, like Terror Creatures From the Grave just have memorable titles.
‘No, no, accursed murderers’
That said, subscribers will know I’m a sucker for this sort of high gothic
'Yes the moment he'd been expecting.'
and this is by no means the worst film we’ve reviewed.
‘I know it’s very easy for you to joke about this subject.’
I’m just saying that upfront because people get angry without watching the whole review.
‘You take these things seriously?’
Attorney Albert Kovac is invited to meet with Jeronimus Hauf,
but when he arrives and is met by Hauf’s wife.
‘My husband’s been dead for a year’
He also meets Hauf’s daughter Corine.
‘Why don’t you tell him the truth about my father?’
That ‘truth’ involves the plague burial ground on which their house is built.
‘This is a place of horror, where thousands of men have died’
and Hauf’s occult experiments with them.
‘A lunatic who endeavoured to summon the souls of the ancient dead’
which didn’t make him popular with the locals,
and I imagine his choice of décor didn’t improve things.
'These are the mummified hands of men who were executed because it was belived they were spreading the black plague.'
Still better than those flying ducks.
Alone in his room later Kovac reiterates everything via some internal monologue.
‘Here I am the guest in a hospital for plague victims, summoned by a dead man to draw up his will’
This voiceover is wholly unnecessary and irregular enough that each time he does it you wonder who the hell is speaking,
particularly when he has his back to the camera.
‘What a strange creature, he has such a far away look.’
just seems like he’s being rude.
‘Somehow I sense he dislikes me’
Maybe because I keep staring at him.
Next day Kovac’s car won’t start.
‘There’s an owl caught in the engine’
There’s an owl caught in the engine?
Okay, there’s an owl caught in the engine.
Don’t know whether to call a mechanic or a vet, but that explains the hooting noise during my drive here.
Hauf’s daughter Corine believes her father is still alive.
‘He had powers beyond the world of men’
and she’s not the only one.
‘The day of revenge is coming’
Revenge for what? How did he die?
'He was drinking one night with friends, he got drunk and fell down the stairs.'
That’s the official version, but now others are turning up dead.
‘I hearby state that death was due to umm… heart failure’
Then he fell over and knocked acid into his face, yeah, that’ll do.
Now, one thing I’ve learned from years of Dark Corners is that nothing enlivens a slightly staid film like a good prophet of doom.
‘The corpse collectors always come when someone is doomed to meet his fate’
he’s only in this one scene but makes the most of it.
‘He was one of those present at the death of Jerohymous Hauf.
'They are all marked to die’
as we learn about the 5 witnesses to Jeronimus’s ‘accident.
‘3 of them are dead already the others haven’t long to wait’
That does seem a coincidence
‘Coincidence?!’
but why would these five, all friends of Jeronimus, wish him harm?
‘They said they were friends of his but instead they hated him because he dabbled in the occult’
So there’s your plot; is Jeronimus Hauf coming back from the dead to seek vengeance on the five ‘witnesses’?
‘But of course we all know the dead don’t come back to life’
Is he dead at all?
‘If Jeronymous is dead there must be some reason for these machinations’
and the plot thickens when we learn.
‘No one ever saw the body of Jeronimous dead, not even his wife’
So, the five people who saw him die also decided to bury him immediately
before anyone else saw the body, and no one questioned that?
‘The grave is empty then he isn’t dead after all’
Oh, internal monologue’s back.
#different voice# 'I could tell you weren't from around here.'
#Another voice# 'Save yourself, he summoned you too'
Oh great now there’s more voices in there.
Here’s the thing about Terror Creatures From the Grave;
it’s all there; the gothic eeriness,
#thunder lightning very very frightening#
the plague graves,
forbidden love,
noises in the night.
'I thought it might be a burglar, maybe it was just the fish.'
We have a very noisy fish.
It’s got the obligatory flashback to the original murder.
'I'll expose all of you, you're finished.'
I hope no one’s creeping up behind me.
Even Barbara Steel in the bath.
'Oh Corrine would you mind dear.'
It’s all there, and it just doesn’t come to life.
‘This isn’t what I have hoped for’
Nor does it completely come together.
‘It’s impossible to explain it’
As the ending rolls around it becomes clear there are two things going on,
firstly, Jeronimus’s servant, Kurt has been carting around his master’s corpse to create the illusion he’s still alive.
So it’s Kurt, I assume, who forged the letter summoning Kovac,
though I’ll be damned if I get why.
‘Punishment will strike the innocents and the guilty alike’
But, literally 10 seconds after that scene.
'It's over for you.'
Kurt suddenly contracts the plague as the title finally comes good.
‘The plague spreaders of five centuries ago have risen from their graves’
Not that we get to see them.
Looks like he’s summoned bugs bunny.
Should have turned left at Albuquerque.
So Jeronimus has posthumously raised the dead to take vengeance on the five – actually turns out to be six –
people who wronged him on the one year anniversary of his death,
'My vengeance will find you wherever you are.'
but 4 of the 6 are already dead;
the acid in the face we already saw,
another is kicked by a horse.
another has an off-screen heart failure.
Although the definition of heart failure round here seems to be a loose one.
And there is one suicide, although the nature of the suicide is significantly different in the US dub.
To the orginal Italian version.
Anyone else wondering how he did that?
They don’t seem to have been killed by the plague dead but, truthfully, I don’t know what happened to them,
might just be coincidence.
‘Coincidence?!’
Love that guy.
Bottom line, you wait the whole movie for vengeful Terror Creatures to rise from the Grave
and when they do we don’t get to see them and two thirds of their job has already been done.
'Noooooo'
It’s still Barbara Steele being iconic.
But it could have been more.
Thanks for watching. For more euro horror, click here.
Along with Barbara Steele who are the great female icons of horror?
Your suggestions in the comments below.
Also, did I miss something? Who killed the other 4 witnesses? Anyone?
'Leave the village at once you got to, its a place of death, save yourself before it is too late.'