Terror Creatures From the Grave (1965)

5 Tombe Per un Medium

Cast:

Walter Brandi is Albert Kovac
Mirella Maravidi is Corinne Hauff
Barbara Steele is Cleo Hauff
Alfredo Rizzo is Dr. Nemek
Riccardo Garrone is Joseph Morgan

What the IMDBsays:

An attorney arrives at a castle to settle the estate of its recently deceased owner. The owner's wife and daughter reveal that he was someone who was able to summon the souls of ancient plague victims and, in fact, his spirit was roaming the castle at that very moment. Soon occupants of the castle begin to die off in gruesome, violent ways.

Plot:

Some guy is chased through a city and gets attacked while saddling a horse. Eventually, this scene ties into the rest of the movie...

Albert Kovac, attorney, meets with Cleo Hauff, her husband, Dr. Jeronimus Hauff wants his will changed a year after he died.

Corinne, the doctor's daughter shows Albert around the villa that used to be a plague hospital. That night Corinne awakens from screaming about her father. In the morning she claims she saw him again.

The village's doctor, Dr. Nemek, Corinne, and Albert find the village mayor dead. Nemek and Albert are told of Dr. Hauff's "accident" a year earlier and how 3 of the 5 witnesses have died. Dr. Hauff was a scientiest thatdealt in the occultto reanimate the dead.

The 4^th witness is killed.

That's one bad acne problem...

Albert thinks that Dr. Hauff wasn't buried last year. Hauff's wishes includeddug up a year after his burial to be interred elsewhere. When the coffin is dug up, they discover that Hauff's grave is empty.

Albert discovers that the 5^th witness is his partner, Joseph Morgan.

Cleo and Joseph Morgan apparently have had a secret relationship.

Hauff's gardner has prepared the good doctor and the plague spreaders for Hauff's secret revenge plan. The witnesses were Hauff's friends who killed him a year earlier. Hauff discovered that those killed a year earlier would re-animate. Hauff wants his vengeance and finishes Cleo and Joseph.

Albert realizes that water keeps the plague-carriers away. Suddenly it starts raining which saves Albert and Corinne.

What I say:

One way to draw attention to movies is to give them long titles. Most of these long titles have to have some sort of large descriptive name: Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla, Bruce Lee Fights Back From the Grave, Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter, the Night Evelyn Came out of the Grave, and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Well, lets not always have first and last names. However, Terror Creatures From the Grave just sound like the horror title that came out of a grab bag. Invasion of the Saucer Men would be a sci-fi sounding equivalent.

In some other movies: Carnival of Souls, Dementia 13, or Night of the Living Dead, the black/white even if it is so worn out doesn't look this bad. Don't think of a movie on being on any kind of level of quality where the movie is so badly faded you can't tell if the movie is originally black/white or colored. When the black/white is so faintly colored that you can't tell if it was then you've got a problem.

Originally from Italy, this movie was later dubbed into English. 'Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe' would give you the idea that this movie would be more relative to some of his work. However, the closest is Barbara Steele who starred in the Roger Corman-Vincent Price Pit and the Pendelum.

The mad scientist that swears vengeance on those that killed him sounds like the typical horror movie. Re-animating the dead so they can be the crawling the plague to everywhere around them would be more than what the movie does. It doesn't really have an explanation of who's doing anything besides the gardner wanting to avenge his boss. The ending just has that "well, the ending must happen at this point of the story." The deus ex machina ending never tends to make a much of a movie.

Quotable Dialogue
"Excuse me, is anyone here?"
"I heard strange noises on the phone..."
"The day of revenge is coming."
"It's unmistakenably the plague."
Morals of the Story
Severed hands for body part collections are common place.
Villages need pharmacists and blacksmiths in the 1950s and 1960s.
Dolls need to have musical boxes included.