Tumba Maldita

This is an obscure little film that is more atmospheric than anything else. It's certainly not original, in fact it's a loose remake of a much earlier film called "Secret of the Blue Room"...which, in itself, was remade as "Murder in the Blue Room". Confused yet?

Here we have a stereotypical rich megalomaniac whose death brings out the worst in his surviving relatives. He threatens to come back to life and murder each of them if they do not conform to the minute details of his burial. Of course they blatantly disregard the orders, and soon they are all being picked off as promised. Not that any of them have the sense to just leave the old manor.

This is particularly interesting for its photography, which makes excellent use of light and shadow. Faces loom out of darkness, small objects are illuminated by tiny shafts of light, and the confines of the gloomy mansion are utilized to the hilt. This takes place in an indeterminate time period, with a glaring lack of modern technology, which adds to the gothic feel of the film.

Candace Hilligoss from "Carnival Of Souls" is our heroine, which is another intriguing aspect of the movie. Truthfully, I wasn't aware that Roy Scheider was even in this film, which makes me want to go back and watch it again just out of curiosity. I musn't have been watching the credits.

If you can find this one, you may enjoy it for the aforementioned reasons, but don't expect any real chills or thrills. If you can't figure out the conclusion ahead of time, you're just not paying close enough attention.

In the year of our Lord, 1964, the horror genre already underwent a metamorphosis. Films like "Psycho" and "Peeping Tom" gave a new meaning to terms like tension and terror, pioneers like Hershel Gordon-Lewis were experimenting with extreme splatter, and across the Atlantic Ocean geniuses, like Mario Bava were savagely butchering fashion models in the first Gialli. Why this little history lecture? Well, because "The Curse of the Living Corpse" was released in the same year, but it still looks and feels - deliberately - like a horror production of the 30s or early 40s.

Okay, admittedly, it's a more Grand Guignol than in the thirties, with severed girls' heads on a plate and close-ups of burned corpses, but "The Curse of the Living Corpse" is basically a standard "old dark house" chiller, and I expected Boris Karloff or Bela Lugosi to pop out from behind the curtain at any given moment. Everything else is there: the death of a rich but tyrannical patriarch, the atmospheric reading of the will, insufferably greedy relatives bickering with each other, eerie family vaults, peek-holes through the eyes of portraits, quicksand puddles, redundant comic relief characters, etc.

All this isn't criticism, you know. I love hammy guff like this, especially when the main characters are as loathsome as the Sinclair brothers, and when the death traps are sadistically linked to the victims' deepest fears. Director Del Tenney maintains a good pacing, the ensemble cast is more than amiable (including the debut performance of none other than Roy Scheider), the women are beautiful, and the end-twist is acceptable.

Has the patriarch of a turn-of-the-century New England family actually returned from the dead to start murdering his relatives, one by one? Believe me, by the time you get to the end of this low-voltage horror film, you won't really care anymore. Of interest only as the film debut of Roy Scheider, as well as the second movie appearance by "Carnival of Souls" star Candace Hilligoss.

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed and Produced by Del Tenney; Released by 20th Century-Fox. Screenplay by Del Tenney; Dialogue by Alan Bodian; Photography and Production Design by Richard Hilliard; Edited by Jack Hirschfeld and Gary Youngman; Edited by George Burt and Bill Holcomb. Starring Roy Scheider, Helen Waren, Margot Hartman, Robert Milli, Linda Donovan, Hugh Franklin and Candace Hilligoss.

A 1960s costume horror flick concerning the systematic decimation of the beneficiaries of a millionaire's will by the presumably still-living stiff. Cheaply executed b good, wasted performances by a cast of unknowns (of whom Roy Scheider would achieve stardom a decade later), but the premise remains a dead one, overused many moons ago. Surprisingly interesting photography, and notable for the meticulous use of just over the borderline nudity.

Old Rufus Sinclair wasn't a nice man, so it's no surprise that when he dies, no one in his family mourns the loss. Rufus had a condition that made him appear to be clinically dead, so he was terrified of being buried alive; so much so that his will contained explicit instructions for his family to carry out--or they would each be killed by a method that frightened them the most.

Oldest son, Robert Milli, who looks like he's doing a seductive Rhett Butler imitation, is bad at gambling, but good at having his way with the maids and his brother (Roy Scheider)'s wife..he's pretty despicable..and Scheider isn't much better as the always inebriated Phillip, who thinks his dark sarcasm makes him the clever one. Rufus actually preferred his nephew, Dino Narizzano who is dull as dishwater. Scheider's wife, Margot Hartman is conniving, and Narizzano's girlfriend (Candace Hilligoss) is just plain vapid.

As promised, we see the coffin lid open...and then we see a figure in black, only his eyes visible. Rufus? Zorro? Hard to tell. The bodies stack up, and the police are called..and that's too bad. The police inspector and his assistant are comic relief in a picture where it just doesn't fit.

Is it awful? No, in fact, compared to most of the B-made for the drive-in set movies of the period, this one has some good points. It does have some thoughtful cinematography, and actually could pull off the Victorian horror if the buffoonery of the police hadn't put a halt to it. Except for a couple of actors, the performances were pretty amateurish, but I guess my low expectations were met. So so..but of course, you may be scared to death by it..don't believe me? Just watch the cheesy trailer!