Attorney Joseph Morgan (Riccardo Garrone) receives an unusual letter from a Doctor Jeronimus Hauff. The letter asks Mr. Morgan to come to his country villa in Bregoville to write his last will and testament. Since Morgan is out of the office, his assistant Albert Kovac (Walter Brandi) goes in his place.
When Albert reaches the estate he is greeted by Hauff’s daughter Corinne (Mirella Maravidi) and his second wife Clio (Barbara Steele). Mystified Clio tells Albert that her husband died a year ago and that tomorrow, on the anniversary of his burial, he is to be moved from his in-ground grave to the estate’s crypt. Since the weather is turning bad and the roads are not in good shape Clio offers to let Albert spend the night.
At dinner Corinne tells Albert that her father was a spiritualist and was trying to contact the spirits of a plague. The villa was built on the ruins of where a fifteenth century hospital for plague victims used to stand. She says her father’s spirit roams the villa. Clio says she is talking nonsense. The next day Albert meets Dr. Nemek (Alfredo Rizzo). Albert’s car is disabled when an Owl ends up stuck in the engine. Nemek takes Albert into the local village to report the strange letter. Corinne comes along to run a few errands. In the village they go to see the mayor, who happens to also be the pharmacist. They find him dead.
While documenting the death they learn from the town clerk that the mayor was one of five people who were present when Hauff fell down the stairs and died a year ago. The clerk says he knew there would be deaths since he heard the cart of the corpse collector pass by the night before. He says he heard it three times so there will be three deaths shortly. Since five people were witness to Hauff’s accident and two of them are already dead, that leaves three more deaths. The mayor was one. The clerk is confident that the others would soon follow.
The mystery deepens as Albert tries to make sense of everything. He wonders, is Jeronimus’s spirit haunting the villa and killing or is he really alive and torturing those who he blames for trying to kill him? Perhaps it’s someone else who is killing. Someone who knows the secrets of the five men who were there when Jeronimus died.
“Terror Creatures from the Grave” AKA “Cemetery of the Living Dead” AKA “5 Tombe per un Medium” AKA “Coffin of Terror” AKA “Tombs of Horror” AKA “Five Graves for a Medium” was released in 1965 and was directed by Massimo Pupillo. It is said that Pupillo was not pleased with the final rendering of the film and so allowed producer Ralph Zucker to take credit for directing even though Zucker never actually directed any scenes. Reportedly Zucker did direct a few added scenes to the American version of the film. The film is an Italian horror movie in co-production with the U.S.
There are a bunch of versions of the film floating around, anywhere from an hour long to an hour and twenty-six minutes. Some have a nude scene with Mirella Maravidi and some don’t. I’ve seen a couple versions of the film. “Cemetery of the Living Dead” is about an hour long and is an English dubbed version. The American version of “Terror Creatures from the Grave” is an hour and twenty-six minutes long and is a strange mix of Italian subtitled, English dubbed and English dubbed with English subtitles. Still it’s the better of the two.
There are lots of disturbing noises and spooky music throughout the film. Plus there is a creepy gardener named Kurt (Luciano Pigozzi). The villa itself looks like a haunted house with preserved body parts from plague victims strewn about. There is no lacking of horror atmosphere. The movie ended up being much better than I expected. The longer version was far more entertaining than the cut down “Cemetery of the Living Dead”. The story is filled out more and makes more sense. At first I started watching “Cemetery” and I wasn’t sure this would be any good but then I realized I had both versions of the film. When I watched “Terror Creatures” I found it a lot more interesting. It had some nice gothic atmosphere and the plot had enough suspense that I had to find out how it ended. There was a just a touch of ambiguousness in the ending but it was still quite satisfying.