Review: Terror in the Crypt

AKA “Crypt of the Vampire”

 

The Karnstein family has been cursed for generations, with one family member sentenced to death for supposedly being a witch. Count Ludvig von Karnstein (Christopher Lee) is worried for his daughter Laura (Adriana Ambesi), who is plagued by nightmares involving blood-sucking. Could Laura be the next Karnstein in line to be cursed as some kind of sinister supernatural being? Jose Campos plays a young historian hired by the Count to uncover more of his family’s ancient secrets. Nela Conjiu plays family housekeeper Rowena, who might have some sinister secrets of her own. Also stopping by the family castle is beautiful young Lyuba (Ursula Davis), whom Laura takes an immediate and rather intense interest in.

 

An atmospheric 1964 vampire tale from director Camillo Mastrocinque (“An Angel for Satan” with Barbara Steele) that only works in fits and starts, and wastes Christopher Lee in a rather dull role. I guess he was happy to not be playing the vampire or villain for once, but he just doesn’t get enough to say or do here to make the difference worthwhile. Speaking of difference, this is a more vengeful witch-y depiction of the usual Karnstein vampire story, but that original approach only takes it so far with me because I prefer the sexy Sapphic vampire motif of other versions. The only character here of any interest is that of Laura, played by Adriana Ambesi. She’s a tortured soul afraid of who and what she supposedly is. I just wish Ambesi’s actual performance was better.

 

Aside from the always solid Lee, the only decent performance here is by Nela Conjiu as Dame Judith Anderson-esque housekeeper Rowena. The strength of the film is in its atmosphere which is somewhere in between Gothic and a trippy dream/nightmare deal. The final act offers up some wonderfully stormy and histrionic stuff I must say. The atmosphere is a whole lot more interesting than the plot or characters, outside of some pretty strong Sapphic undertones for 1964. Even then you have to deal with a cartoony clarinet music score by Carlo Savina (Mario Bava’s “Lisa and the Devil”). The piano-based elements of the score are effective, but every time that cheapo clarinet shit comes in, it makes me roll my eyes. Also eye-rolling is a dreadful cameo at the finale by a guy who seems to have modelled himself on Uncle Fester. It’s comically bad, I’m afraid.

 

Someday someone’s gonna make a great version of Carmilla. Hammer’s “The Vampire Lovers” was pretty good, probably the best to date. This Spanish-Italian co-production is sadly one of the more middling ones, I’m afraid. Most of the characters and performances failed to grab me, despite some nice atmosphere. More miss than hit, but not terrible outside of Christopher Lee’s haircut. The screenplay is by Tonino Valerii (who has directed a few spaghetti westerns like “Day of Anger”) and Ernesto Gastaldi (“Torso”, “The Horrible Dr. Hichcock”, and “The Whip and the Body”, co-starring Lee) loosely adapted from the aforementioned Sheridan Le Fanu novella.

 

Rating: C+

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chil...
Read more

Review: Cinderella (1950)

The story of poor young Cinderella (voiced by Ilene Woods), treated as a servant by her nasty stepmother (voiced by Eleanor Audley), and dismissed by her thoroughly rotten, ugly stepsisters. Her only friends are a group of mice, who are forever being menaced by a cat named Lucifer (or as I call him, Grumpy Cheshire Cat). The King (hoping to find a wife for his charming son) is throwing a ball and every available young woman is invited to attend, and Cinderella is most excited to go. However, her stepmother and stepsisters do all they can to prevent this from happening. But with help from the mice and one fairy godmother (voiced by Verna Felton) later, and Cinderella looks set to attend the ball. You know the rest, folks.   Lovely 1950 Disney animated movie from directors Clyde Geronimi ( “Peter Pan” , “Lady and the Tramp” ), Wilfred Jackson ( “Fantasia” , “Alice in Wonderland” , “Peter Pan” ) & Hamilton Luske ( “Pinocchio” , “Fantasia” , “Peter Pan” ), that is a bit t...
Read more

Review: Jinnah

The story of Mohammed Ali Jinnah (Sir Christopher Lee) the politically moderate founder of Pakistan. A Muslim lawyer, Jinnah fought to form a separate nation from India for the Muslim minority, whilst Mahatma Gandhi (Sam Dastor) wished for India to stay united and proposed Jinnah as the new PM as a compromise. James Fox plays British viceroy Lord Mountbatten, Indira Varma plays Jinnah’s wife, and veteran bit player Vernon Dobtcheff plays a British dignitary.   Although Christopher Lee’s title performance received some critical notice and the actor himself was very proud of the work, this modestly budgeted 1998 biopic from director Jamil Dehlavi ( “Immaculate Conception” with Melissa Leo) and co-writer Farrukh Dhondy ( “Red Mercury” with Stockard Channing and Ron Silver) was largely ignored at the time and still very little-known today. Part of that is probably due to the poor marketing of the film, and difficulty in finding a distributor. It’s hard to get people to talk abo...
Read more