Director: Emilio P. Miraglia
Year: 1971
Country: Italy
Alternate Titles: La notte che Evelyn usci dalla tomba
Genre: Giallo
Plot:
While trying to keep his sanity in check, a wealthy entrepreneur tries to move on with a new wife who is supposed to help him cure a debilitating psychological condition, but the more they stay together the more convinced he becomes that his former wife is still haunting him and affecting his relationship.
Review:
This was a generally solid second-tier genre effort. One of the better features here is the strong setup involving the main characters’ clear psychological issues. Introduced very early on with the clear obsession he has with the old wife when he has a mental breakdown and snaps while meeting the prostitute, that there’s plenty of work here with the doctor treating him for his condition while their friends are more concerned with trying to contact her spirit offers the kind of grand work the genre needs to work. This is carried throughout the majority of the first half where his mental sanity is continually questioned with the interactions involving the dancer playing this off quite nicely.
As well, this setup offers a fine inclusion for the film’s psychological undertones to mesh well with the Gothic sensibilities involving the belief of whether or not his dead wife is still alive or not. Since his psyche is already shown to be fractured, the constant notions of seeing her figure around the castle grounds despite all the reassurances to the contrary create an intriguing sense of suspense over the whole situation as the shifty staff and constant misdirections about the incidents. It all comes to a head with a fantastic finale that has some impressive twists and turns that are incredibly fun to see play out which are all factored together to be the positive features of this one.
There are some big issues to be had here. The main factor is the completely uninteresting main group of people we’re supposed to root for as everything here is just bland and dull. Rather than imparting any kind of sympathy here, the constant blackouts, putting down his wife’s queries that something’s wrong, and the claims of the staff that something’s wrong are nowhere close to making us side with him. For a film like this to be built on siding quite heavily with the protagonist during the whole situation, for the film to be so underwhelming with the lead in this manner and making him this dull and unlikeable is a massive hole to have to overcome that the film struggles as a whole to do so.
That ties largely into the other issue prominent with the film where it’s quite dull and bland for the majority of the first half here. As this section never really does much with the idea of his maddening obsession and eventual psychosis beyond going through an endless stream of women to placate his deviances, there are some rather dull and underwhelming moments to be found here. It has the unfortunate addition of also enhancing the unappealing characters we’re forced to spend time with as these types of characters so it can be all the more frustrating to see play out here, which all combine together to lower this one slightly from what it could’ve been.
Overview: **.5/5
An enjoyably entertaining if slightly disappointing giallo, there’s a lot to like here which manages to keep this one watchable over some pretty big flaws lowering it overall. Genre fans or just Eurohorror fanatics in general will have the most to like with the film while those who don’t appreciate this style or don’t enjoy the negatives should heed caution here.
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