This film, based on a script by best friends Tonino Valerii and Ernesto Gastaldi, was the first horror film to be directed by Camillo Mastrocinque, whose directorial career had begun in 1937, more than sixty films previously. He was not much longer for this world - he would die in 1969 at the age of 67, after managing one more horror film, the extraordinary AN ANGEL FOR SATAN (Un angelo per Satana, 1966), starring Barbara Steele and Anthony Steffen. Mastrocinque was almost a decade older than most Italian directors of his era and he was primarily known for his romance, comedy (particularly those starring Totò), and opera films. The shots, emotions, and scenery we associate with such pictures are the primary substance of THE CRYPT OF THE VAMPIRE (formerly known in TV showings as TERROR IN THE CRYPT), which presents its supernatural content with a modicum of style but with little discernible gusto.
However, this is not to say that the film is without interest. Valerii and Gastaldi based their creation on J. Sheridan Le Fanu's classic vampire text CARMILLA (which had received a more modern adaptation in recent memory by Roger Vadim as BLOOD AND ROSES, 1960) and also repurposed the opening of Stoker's DRACULA by having Count Ludwig Karnstein (Christopher Lee) summon historian Friedrich Klauss (José Campos) to his castle... in this case, with orders to search his family library for any and all information concerning his remote ancestor Siri of Karnstein, who was put to death by members of her own family for witchcraft centuries ago - and, if at all possible, locate some record of her image.
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| Ursula Davis and Audrey Amber. |
The Count's interest in all this has been prompted by the fears of his neurotic housekeeper Rowena (Nela Conju) concerning his adult daughter Laura (Adriana Ambesi/"Audrey Amber"), who is suffering from nightmares involving a creepy black coach awaiting her in the woods. Rowena fervently believes these dreams have something to do with the curse Siri placed upon her family descendants at the time of her execution. Laura lives in relative isolation and secretly accedes to Rowena's occult rituals meant to protect her from Siri's beyond-the-grave reach - but they seem to have rather the opposite effect, as her dreams are soon fulfilled by a coach accident on the Karnstein property, which leaves in their temporary care a pleasant and lovely young companion for Laura, Ljuba (Pier Anna Quaglia/"Ursula Davis"). Klauss was beginning to have hopes of a future with Laura, but she becomes strangely inaccessible following Ljuba's arrival, wanting only to be with her and to gaze into her eyes. Of course, as we know from this now much-filmed story, Ljuba is a vampire summoned from Hell, but the only means available to the Count and to Klauss is to discover which of the hundred paintings in the ancestral castle covers the hidden portrait of Siri of Karnstein. So the film consolidates the classic trappings of a vampire story with the more modern provisions of a whodunit.
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| José Campos and Christopher Lee. |
CRYPT OF THE VAMPIRE is quite watchable but it falls considerably short of delivering all that a CARMILLA adaptation should. Aside from Lee's nicely coiffured and clothed presence (by night, he sports a monogrammed, quilted dressing gown that would have been the envy of Vincent Price), the casting is generally second (perhaps even third) rate, and much of the action dances dangerously near to dull. Perhaps to offset censorship problems, the necessary attraction between Laura and Ljuba is lacking any sense of passion, recklessness, or danger, much less eroticism; their magnetism is no more than cloying and sentimental. The film's saving graces are some nicely operatic set-pieces (one involving a Hand of Glory, a decade before THE WICKER MAN) and the supplanting of any lesbic vampirism with mysteries, murders, and discoveries almost as diverting. Some of the film's most interesting ingredients are postponed till quite late in the story, including a hunchback potion vendor (Marzio Martine, who evokes some of the fairy tale qualities found in CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD) and a practically last-minute pop-up by ever-reliable John Karlsen. The castle shown in the film was the Castello Piccolomini in Balsorano (also seen in BLOODY PIT OF HORROR, Il boia scarlatto, 1965), a nicely rounded, turreted edifice not to be confused with the blockier Castello Piccolomini in Campestrano. Viewers with an eye for props may recollect that the Karnstein family emblem, a large stylized letter K featured on everything from the family's coach to its handkerchiefs, previously adorned the corridors of Piero Regnoli's THE PLAYGIRLS AND THE VAMPIRE (L'ultima preda del vampiro, 1960, an earlier Gastaldi script), serving as the brand of the undead Count Gabor Kernassy (Walter Brandi).
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| CRYPT OF THE VAMPIRE makes a brief side tour into Mario Bava Land. |
While it's hardly misspent time as is, CRYPT could have been much better had it been entrusted to a director with genuine feeling for the genre. This may be the earliest Italian horror film to pay homage to Bava's BLACK SUNDAY, made three years earlier, which must be the input of the screenwriters, as Mastrocinque presents these allusions with absolutely no consciousness of the original's visual impact or verve. (The scene pictured above, obviously indebted to BLACK SUNDAY's opening scene, is prevented from reaching for its heights by the narrative's need to keep the witch's face averted - and the men in the hoods just stand there, doing nothing.) This is also true of the various crude zooms into wide-eyed, gaping-mouthed dead faces, which - like the opening nightmare sequence - are lacking whatever idea or ingredient that might have brought these moments to more sinister life (fog, mist, lightning, a well-placed cantered camera angle). It should be noted that this was also a first horror film for producer Mario Mariani (experienced only at Totò comedies), composer Carlo Savina (whose alternately romantic and eerie score recalls Armando Trovajoli's work on WEREWOLF IN A GIRL'S DORMITORY or HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD), and also its director of photography, Giuseppe Aquari, who would re-team with Mastrocinque much more effectively on AN ANGEL FOR SATAN.
The film was produced by Mariani for a company called Europrodis and most of its actors - with the exceptions of Lee, Campos, and Conju - worked under English aliases - even Signor Mastrocinque became "Thomas Miller." Severin Films presents it in its best showing ever, a new 2K restoration from a fine-grain 35mm master print in its intended 1.85:1 screen ratio. The contrast is a little soft and there is some visible streakiness at times which must be part of the original master. Aside from these negligeable birthmarks, the presentation is a revelation compared to the old 16mm TERROR IN THE CRYPT TV prints ("James H. Nicholson & Samuel Z. Arkoff present...") The audio options are particular points of interest: provided are the English export dub (featuring the voices of Lee, Tony Russel as Klauss, and Nela Conju dubbed by whoever provided the voice for Baroness Graps in KILL, BABY... KILL!) as well as the original Italian track (with optional English subtitles in yellow, taken directly from the dubbing script - which means we sometimes see subtitles when nothing has been said). The native track, which brings us into closer contact with the original florid writing of the piece and the intended sound of its dialogue, is more effective but deal-breaking for most viewers as Lee's role is dubbed by another, less stentorian actor.
This particular disc in Severin's EUROCRYPT OF CHRISTOPHER LEE box set offers only one extra: a nearly 4m trailer prepared for the English export market - which at least led to it being released in the UK as CRYPT OF HORROR. It's narrated by former SHADOW of the airwaves Bret Morrison, who promises the most terrifying role of Christopher Lee's career.
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