Murder Mansion (1973)

Boring attempt at Giallo. Bad directing, overly long opening of people driving on an expressway..and a VERY BAD PRINT that looks like an edited VHS that's 30years old

This minor and bargain-bin budget entry in the "travelers gathered in creepy mansion" genre is surprisingly good and effective.A bunch of characters wind up spending the night in a Gothic home near a cemetery, where legends about the undead abound. The film isn't very adept at introducing us to these people in a way that makes it clear who they are and how they're related to one another, but the only thing that's important anyway is that one of them is the wealthy wife of a dissatisfied husband with serious daddy issues and a history of nervous breakdowns. She's convinced that she saw a giant man dressed as a butler joined by an old woman lurking in the cemetery, a story that the hostess is only too happy to corroborate with her own tales about the dark and eerie history that surrounds the place. People start dying, a couple of the more curious house guests suspect that something's afoot and go investigating, and there you have your movie.By the time the film is over, it's more mystery than horror movie, but it's fairly cleverly plotted for the kind of movie it is, and it does manage to effect a couple of genuinely creepy moments. Keep in mind that this is super low budget obscure cinema we're talking about here, so everything is relative, but within that narrow definition, this film isn't half bad.Listed at IMDb as "Maniac Mansion," but the version I saw was titled "Murder Mansion."Grade: B

Nice guy motorcyclist Fred (a likable performance by Andres Resino) and sweet hitchhiker Laura (winningly played by the lovely Lisa Leonardi) get seriously lost in a thick, dense fog and are forced to seek refuge in a rundown old mansion that's located right next to a cemetery. Naturally, strange and frightening things begin to happen come nighttime. Director Francisco Lara Polop, working from a blithely hokey script by Luis G. de Blain, trots out all the expected lovably hoary horror clichés: a remote decrepit abode in the middle of nowhere, elements of witchcraft and vampirism, a few bloodless, yet still cool murder set pieces, plenty of spooky and mysterious atmosphere, a misty and eerie graveyard, rat-infested catacombs, people walking dark hallways in the wee hours of the evening, and even a neat "Scooby Doo"-style surprise twist ending. The sturdy cast portray their stock parts with admirable sincerity: Resino and Leonardi make for appealing leads, with fine support from Ida Galli as the sinister Martha Clinton, Analia Gade as the anxious and distraught Elsa, Franco Fantasia as smarmy jerk Mr. Porter, Alberto Dalbes as adulterous rich cad Ernest, and Ingrid Garbo as Ernest's enticing mistress Ellen. Guglielmo Mancori's handsome cinematography gives the picture an attractive picturesque look. Marcello Giombini's spirited groovy'n'shuddery score hits the shivery spot. Despite the lack of graphic gore and nudity, this fright feature manages to be quite enjoyable and engrossing; there's an endearingly earnest quality to it that's impossible to either resist or dislike. An entertaining late-night TV staple.

Unusual and likable Spanish/Italian co-production that plays something like a seventies Spanish, Old Dark House with giallo elements. Split more or less into three parts, the beginning takes place on the road, the middle introduces us to all the varied peoples holed up in the mansion in the fog and the final 25minutes are pretty wild action all the way. In truth there is nothing particularly violent or sexual but all the ladies are lovely, we really don't know what's going on any more than they do and we care enough to stick with it to find out. Worth it? Yes, I reckon so, it's just that little bit different and even the 'posh' English dubbing seems to help the strangeness that permeates the whole film.