Review: La notte che Evelyn uscì dalla tomba A.K.A. The Night Evelyn Came out of the Grave (1971)

I'd been dying to see this ever since I saw it featured in a montage video of 70s exploitative horror trailers on YouTube, and after finally getting my hands on it, I have to say I was totally bummed.

You would THINK it was a ghost story based on the fact that it's trailer repeatedly shows a white gowned dead woman wandering around, scaring the living daylights out of everyone, as well as its amazing tagline "the worms are waiting," and not to mention its morbid title, but this film seems determined to completely steer clear of its own description.

This biggest problem with this film is that it seems confused as to what kind of movie it's trying to be. It strives to confound its audience by introducing it as a psychological slasher, later adding crime, romance, and revenge elements, which could be an interesting concoction, if only it made any goddamned sense. Instead, it merely leaves us grappling for a rational explanation for its abhorrable stupidity. The only thing that's frightening about this movie is the insipidly slow pace and utter lack of plausibility. It's basically an attempt to slap together as many genres as possible and then sell it as a gothic horror. Italian horror might be well known for pushing the envelope, but this is just unforgivable.

Directed by Emilio Miraglia who also directed The Red Queen Kills Seven Times and starring Anthony Steffan, The Night Evelyn Came out of the Grave tells the tale of a Ted Bundy-ishly handsome and emotionally distraught basketcase, Sir Alan Vincent Cunningham, who is obsessed with his dead and unfaithful redheaded wife, Evelyn. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so he takes up a hobby in serial killing by luring redheaded prostitutes and strippers to his semi-dilapidated gothic castle, where he shows off his medieval torture chamber and subsequently strangles them to death.

He undergoes a change of heart when he meets a strawberry blonde named Gladys at a friend's lavish party. Hours later (or possibly less than that), after some banter and a lovemaking session, they decide to get married and move into the non-foreboding section of his castle.  Suddenly, Sir Alan puts his murderous antics aside and moves on with his life, a reality that Evelyn doesn't seem too fond of. Sir Alan becomes paranoid that Evelyn is haunting him and will try to avenge him for loving another woman, yet it's really hard to tell what the hell is happening since the movie seems to get off on disengaging us with its relentless and absurd plot twists. The only motivation I had to finish watching it was the implication of Evelyn's impending resurrection, which does occur but not in a supernatural sense.

To be fair, it contains a few decent qualities including an appropriately dreary atmosphere as well as some fantastic shots of the the creepy medieval castle where the film is primarily set. There's also a slight omnipresence of Evelyn that provides some semblance of unease, but there's neither any real tension during the pivotal scenes nor a convincing and consistent storyline to follow.

This film might have worked had it stuck to a specific story line, but unfortunately it's just a major disappointment. It's so bad, its not even laughable. If you enjoy the style of giallo, it might be worth a look, since it does contain some of its properties, however, if you intend to find any logic in the sequence of events, spare yourself the headache.