Director: Garibaldi Serra Caracciolo (as Finney Cliff)
Year: 1965
Country: Italy
Alternate Titles: La settima tomba
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
Heading to a local castle, a gathering of heirs looking for their inheritance after the death of a wealthy relative is forced to stay at the house which brings them into contact with a curse involving their supposedly dead heir coming back to stalk them which forces them to figure out what’s going on.
Review:
Generally, this was a fairly solid and likable by-the-numbers Italian gothic horror effort. One of the better features here is the strong setup that doesn’t really set any new boundaries but works for this type of fare. The idea of the group of unscrupulous and greedy family members looking to gather their inheritance at a castle of their relative at a will reading to be held at the castle is one featured in quite a few genre efforts over the years. However, that still allows this one to work incredibly well at offering up the kind of solid starting point here by giving the group enough of a reason to get together at the location, providing a brief bit of history about their arrival with their intentions about gathering there, and also gathering a bit of information about who each one is that helps establish everything for later on. As this also manages to include the work done by the group while at the castle looking into the history of their relative and the bizarre lifestyle he led that involves radical experimentation, unusual collections, and twisted secrets that are all part and parcel of the genre, it fits into the genre rather nicely.
The longer they stay at the castle, though, the more this one moves into the type of Gothic melodrama spiced up with random bits of proto-slasher/Giallo-style attacks that make the genre rather fun. The early scenes of the group staying at the house and looking around the castle grounds which enables them to learn about the true nature of his experiments in the underground laboratory trying to look into the leprosy diagnosis he has gives everything a great touch. That leads into the more involved sequences featuring the group holding a seance that goes into some rather extreme revelations during the experience and the group picked off one by one around the castle grounds leads to some immensely chilling sequences here. Enhanced rather nicely by the expected Gothic trappings within the house and the belief that the cursed relative is still alive and running after the family that includes the series of encounters involving the nightgown-clad women running through the secret passageways or looking for the killer with fiery candelabras, this all brings about some genuinely fun and chilling moments for a lot to like here.
There are some big issues here that hold this one down. The main issue here is the overall expected and somewhat detrimental familiarity that runs throughout here being pretty much ruled by its cliches. It feels far more like a film that’s going through the Gothic horror playbook about the family brought together by the confines of a strange death and looking to get their hands on an inheritance, find the truth about what’s going on inside the house that’s far more dangerous than anything that gathered them there and begin going through a series of encounters and confrontations that offer up the kind of setup that proves a far more human outcome than the supernatural. It’s all pretty much the same as most other films in the style that includes a similar series of setups and doesn’t differentiate itself from too many other films in the style either which hinders this one quite a bit. The slack pacing that leaves long periods without a lot going on here is another big factor where everything takes so long to get started with everyone standing around discussing their next step that it feels really slow-going at points. Otherwise, this is a rather fun time with these issues holding it back.
Overview: ***.5/5
A generally solid if unspectacular Gothic horror effort, this comes off rather well for what it is although the majority of the flaws here leave this one as a middle-tier genre effort in the end. Those who are fine with those issues or are just a general fan of this style of European Gothic fare will have the most to like with it while most others out there should heed caution until they’ve taken on more prominent names first before this one.
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