|
I just started working my way through the Chilling Classics 50 Movie Pack Collection and MURDER MANSION is the first movie in the set. MURDER MANSION is just my kind of old-fashioned, B-grade horror movie. It is an especially creepy thriller!
In a series of convoluted happenstance, several people end up stranded in a mansion in the middle of nowhere. Apparently, to escape a fog-bound night, although one couple and a woman traveling alone claim to have been cut off by the same car – a Rolls Royce, no less! The mansion is next to a cemetery, where it seems that the undead abound
well, at least a chauffeur and his elderly mistress.
Martha provides the back-story as one of vampires overrunning the town, which is used to explain the deserted village
but, hardly anyone is surprised to hear such a tale. Same with the story of her old Aunt, who is purported to be a witch. But, when Martha describes the death of her aunt; and, the death of her chauffeur, Elsa nearly suffers an apoplectic fit!
Like other Italian horror films of its day, MURDER MANSION features beautiful cinematography. It also features a suitable mansion – surprisingly well-maintained public areas, sufficient living quarters; and, an abysmal cellar! The film is rather thin on plot; but, the dubbed-in dialogue (done after filming)is actually quite good.
Ida Galli (Martha), Analía Gade (Elsa), and Lisa Leonardi (Laura) are exceptionally well cast; and, offer apt performances. The score can be a bit jarring; but, it serves the purpose of intensifying the atmosphere and the action.
The film digresses into a sordid affair between Elsa's father and her classmate; a philandering, gun-toting drunk on the prowl for any woman with a pulse (or, perhaps without one); and, free-love between Fred and Laura, two young folks traveling by motorcycle.
Yes, the plot reads more like a melodrama than a horror movie. But, I liked MURDER MANSION well enough.
score 8/10
catfish-er 21 October 2009
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2144407/ |
|