Cemetery of the Living Dead
1965, Italy, Directed by Massimo Pupillo
Black & White, Running Time: 86 minutes
VHS, PAL, Stablecane, Video: 1.33:1, Audio: Mono
After receiving a letter requesting his presence at a country mansion for the validation of a dying man’s will, eminent lawyer Albert Kovac finds himself on a journey to oblige. Nearing his destination he finds local villagers seem to have some sort of superstitious problem with the place but undeterred he continues, unaware that the man he thinks he is going to see - Dr Hauff - is renowned for occult dabbling. The family seems somewhat surprised at his arrival, seemingly having no knowledge that such a letter was written. They identify that all evidence suggests that Hauff himself wrote the letter, but then reveal that the spiritualist actually died in an alleged falling accident almost a year previously. Finding himself in the middle of a macabre mystery Albert is forced to stay the night due to the storm raging outside. Over the following days his investigation reveals that statements were made by five people on the night Hauff died and now one of the residents of the old mansion is predicting that the dead man will return reap havoc in two days time, at which point it will be exactly one year since his demise. Soon the five original witnesses to the death are being murdered one by one - coincidence? Or has Hauff truly returned from his grave for bloody revenge and if so, why?
Made right in the middle of Italy’s classic Gothic period this one is jammed to the brim with genre clichés, whether it be lightning striking every time something scary is about to happen, a hero forced to stay in an old house due to bad weather, the dead returning for revenge, or villagers who refuse to speak of the hero’s destination. The familiarity makes it a little endearing but it does move at a fairly slow pace and can numb the mind into slumber if you’re not careful. The score is overly melodramatic even for the most minor of occurrences, almost as if previously recorded stock music was inappropriately selected. There are a couple of nice ideas to be found in the story, among them the fact that thousands of people were brought to the mansion premises to die some time prior during a plague while the perpetrators of spreading the disease were apparently subjected to hand amputation before being hanged - their hands creepily returning to life along with the rotting contents of the nearby graveyard towards the film’s end. The movie also contains one particularly gruesome death for the period when a wheelchair-bound man commits suicide by rolling himself on to a sword; when his body is later pulled back his guts dribble from the open stomach. What we don’t really get to see is any putrescent walking corpses, these being merely suggested by the occasional visible hand, creaking carts, shadows, sliding tomb doors, etc. I’m undecided as to whether this works in the film’s favour: it could be short-changing the audience due to budgetary constraints or it might be contributing to the ethereal strangeness of it all. Admittedly it does make you want to see more and that may be the point. There are a couple of effectively spooky passages, generally those depicting the return of unseen spiritual forces, accompanied as they are by creaking noises and the like. Acting throughout is typically wooden but there is the appearance of the chiselled beauty of Barbara Steele to consider, here in another role revolving around jealous love, adultery and supernatural murder. The hero, played by Walter Brandi, is unfortunately quite bland leaving the viewer unable to care about any possible threat to him. Very much a conventional (and largely derivative) product of its era, Cinque Tombe Per Un Medium (to quote the Italian title) does not stand out from the crowd especially well but it makes for fairly comfortable viewing for those already at home with this kind of work.
An 80s videotape - what I believe to be the only UK release - was used for this review, probably uncut but presenting the movie cropped from what I suspect should be a 1.66:1 ratio - it does the compositions no favours with people regularly clipped off the sides. Sound is here in the form of the English dub and again this does no favours, coming across as very cheesy and awkward. I’d be interested to watch this in its correct ratio with an Italian soundtrack as I suspect there is a slightly better movie under all that ridiculous dubbing, this often deterring from any potency that the material itself might boast. Alas, even in the US it has only made it to budget DVD so it would seem anything reasonable is not immediately forthcoming. Note that the film was also known as Terror Creatures From The Grave in some territories, notably the US.