The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave

Although my brain is still melting out of through my ears, I wanted to give you people a real post, so I sat down and watched:

The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (1971).

Directed by Emilio Miraglia and starring Anthony Steffen and Marina Malfati amongst many others, this is the weirdest Giallo I have ever seen. There will be spoilers ahead, but I won't spoil the ending.

The movie starts with a man trying and failing to escape from a psychiatric clinic. Cut to the same man, Lord Alan Cumming sitting in a sports car with a beautiful red haired prostitute. He pretends to stop in order to check the tires, but in reality he removes some false number plates before driving them to his half ruined castle. There he rebuffs her attempts to get it on and leads her to a torture chamber. Before he can brutalize her, he has a mental episode and believes that the prostitute is his dead wife, Evelyn. In a rage he kills her with a knife.

It turns out that he thinks his dead wife betrayed him and had an affair. After her death, his mind unraveled and was committed. Now he seeks (I think) closure by victimizing red haired prostitutes since his wife also had red hair.

We are also introduced to his former brother-in-law, Albert who works as Alan's groundskeeper and blackmails him. We meet Alan's young and sinister Aunt Agatha and his libertine cousin George. Alan's friend and physician Dr. Richard insists that he won't be cured until he remarries and at one of George's decadent parties, Alan meets and falls in love with the beautiful and blonde Gladys. The couple is soon married and they move into Alan's newly renovated castle.

It doesn't take long before Evelyn starts haunting Alan whose mind deteriorates quickly. People get murdered and we finish with a surprisingly good ending.

The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave is really odd in two major ways. First off is the fact the the movie pretends to be in England, and the way that it's shot gives it a late era Hammer Horror vibe, but with Giallo sensibilities. There is a ton of nudity but very little blood. The first murder takes place off camera and the subsequent murders are all pretty bloodless or take place in the dark. Some Hammer films were a lot bloodier although they didn't have all the skin on parade. I don't mind this approach but it almost gives the movie an identity crisis.

The second way this movie is so weird is the fact that Alan is a murderer. The fact that he had the false plates on his car proves that it was premeditated murder and she isn't his only victim either. Yet as the movie goes on, we are asked to sympathize with him. He takes the role of the Victim/Hero and if that wasn't the intent, there is no other character that fits that bill. I could find no reason why they filmmakers thought this would work. If he had hired the prostitute to soothe his grief and then had an episode and killed her in a fit of rage, then maybe, but this is not the case. As I said, weird.

So, do I recommend this movie? No, not really. Completionists and Giallo super fans might enjoy it but it falls short for me. It is competently shot but most of the actors are wooden and the overall quality is sub par. If you want to see a good movie where a man is haunted by his dead wife, watch The Tomb of Ligeia instead, it is superior in every way.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!