Crypt of the Vampire

I just had the opportunity owning this film on video & I'm glad I jumped at it when I did. This film is very rare & hard to find.

This is a story of a family curse that threatens to wipe out every last member of the Karnstein family. A count seeks out a historian to help him search into his family's past to disprove the curse.

As a child this film scarred me but as an adult it intrigues me. It has elements that horror films lack today: atmosphere & mood. It grosses out but not that much. I enjoyed it a great deal. Since its so rare, any Christopher Lee fan should grab it if they ever find it.

The film is known by a few titles 'La cripta e l'incubo' (original title)'Crypt of Horror' aka 'Terror in the Crypt' aka 'Crypt of the Vampire' - no matter the title, it's a pretty good Gothic vampire and witch film. I enjoyed the film anyway.

It's basically about a girl who is having nightmares and taken ill. Her father calls in a doctor for help and a historian to find out more about the family history - to see if he can find what the family curse is and help put an end to it.

This is a film that if you enjoy the clichés like: family curses, vampires, witches, worshiping devils, evil spirits, nightmares, castles, cellars, graveyards and crypts all rolled into a fun Gothic film experience then you might like this particular movie.

7.5/10

Christopher Lee is struggling with the usual dilemmas facing a single parent. His daughter is acting up and getting all goth on him, dreaming she's a vampire that's killing distant relatives, indulging in strange ceremonies with the housekeeper, listening to Cannibal Corpse, all that sort of stuff. Lee's also having a bit of an affair with his maid, who resents Lee's daughter as she sees her as an obstacle regarding getting hitched to Lee.

It's the usual modern day problems, but set in a huge brooding castle next to a ruined village of course. Lee hires a guy to find out what his ancient ancestor looks like to prove to his daughter that she's not her reincarnation, and the guy immediately gets a thing for Lee's daughter. That's a pity, however, as she's kind of taken with a young, mysterious girl who's staying at the castle for a few days while her carriage is getting fixed at the local Kwik Fit, in yet another Italian Goth Horror where suspected vampirism increases your chances of a homosexual experience. Usually of a Sapphic nature.

I quite enjoyed this one, which is your usual Gothic horror with some really grotesque imagery thrown in for good measure, including the housekeeper using a severed hand as a candle holder, a giallo-style killing, and the reveal of why the church bell keeps ringing in the ruined village is a doozy! There's a bit of a mystery about the whole thing too as the young guy keeps digging, trying to find the image of Christopher Lee's ancestor, and who can't like a film that has a hunchbacked soothsayer in it?

The lesbian isn't played up too much of course considering the year this was made, but it ticks all the Gothic Horror boxes for me. I think I've seen them all now, but who knows what waiting out there?

A precious Gem of the classy Italian Gothic with the great Christopher Lee and a good cast of most Italian and some Spanish actors . It is freely based on the known novel ¨Carmilla¨ by Sheridan Le Fanu. It deals with a family curse , its is set at an eerie castle where lives Karnstein family , the father Count Karnstein (Christopher Lee) , his daughter Laura (Adriana Ambesi) and his lover (Vera Valmont). Then , there arrives a historian (José Campos) to investigate an ancient origin and disprove a weird curse on the family , while his daughter seems to be possessed by the spirit of a dead ancestor , Carmilla , who many years ago was ominously executed . Then , a carriage accident forces a beautiful girl (Ursula Davis) to stay at the castle and she befriends Laura , but things go wrong .

A scary and ghastly film with a lot of thrills , chills , and ominous bloodsuckers. Interesting screenplay full of twists and turns , freely based on Sheridan Le Fanu novel : Carmilla , adapted by varous screen writers as Spanish : José Luis Monter , Maria Carmen Martinez Roman as Italian : Tonino Valeri , Ernesto Gastaldi . This terrifying film displays a a great atmosphere and dark mood with appropriate cinematography in black and white , proving careful sets and adequate ambient thanks to inventive production design by Demofilo Fidani who subsquently under pseudonym Miles Deem made a lot of lousy Spaghetti Westerns . Well starred by Christopher Lee , at the time he played several Italian films such as Uncle was a vampire ,Jaguar lives , Ercole al centro della terra, , La vergine of Norimberga , The whip and the body , among others . Along with other actors and gorgeous actresses , many of them under American pseudonyms.

It contains a nice cinematography Julio Ortas with plenty of lights and shades shot in castello Balsonaro LÁquila, Italy . As well as a rousing and frightening musical score by Carlo Savina .This forgotten film in US version was delivered by Samuel Z Arkoff , James H Nicholson from American Internatinal Pictures and was well directed by Camillo Mastrocinque who also made another notorious terror film : Un Angelo per Satana . In addition , he directed a number of Toto vehicles as : Toto Peppino e la malafemmina , Toto al inferno , Toto Peppino e i fuorilegge, Toto lascia o radoppia? . This horrifying picture of the Italian Gothic has a rating 6.5/10 . Decent terror movie.

If there is one thing that even the most low-budget of Spaghetti horrors excel in, it has got to be atmosphere. That is one thing that Terror in the Crypt does extremely well. It exudes a flair of picturesque horror and mystique enhanced all the more by its superb cinematography and eerie score.

Apart from it's great atmosphere, the film is very well crafted and entertaining. I would put it in the vein of other great EuroGoth gems like Terror Creatures From the Grave and The Blancheville Monster. Plus, the immortal Christopher Lee adds plenty to the picture as he always tends to do. But, like many of the other fans of this picture, I would have loved to have seen Lee chew the scenery with genre queen Barbara Steele as this is the type of film that was right up her alley.

Like so many other Gothic efforts, the story revolves around a generations-old family curse. Christopher Lee's character is a Count who fears that a witch's curse is starting to come to fruition as members of his extended family are dying one by one. A great cast of characters makes this story even more interesting. There's Laura, the Count's daughter and prime suspect in carrying out the witch's hex during her nightmare-wrought sleep. There is Laura's sultry friend Lyuba (I must note that the two starlets have great chemistry together and always look like they are on the verge of releasing years of bottled up sexual frustration on each other). A wise old crone who tries to help Laura decipher her nightmares. And there is a young historian who is brought in to try and find out as much of the family's dark history as he can in an effort to thwart the curse.

Terror in the Crypt (recently released as Crypt of the Vampire) is definitely worth the time and money for any fan of EuroGoth films or even just for those wanting to get a glimpse at Christopher Lee's Italian ventures.