Something Creeping in the Dark

I originally bought this movie thinking it would be a giallo, which it is not, though clearly it is informed by such. It is actually an old- fashioned Old Dark House type of film. A motley band of characters are forced to assemble in an old creepy mansion on a dark and stormy night.

Farley Granger is fabulous as a murderer, held captive by the police (the Police Inspector is great, too).

A seance evokes what is evidently a ghost, and then spooky happenings ensue. It's the kind of a movie where everything seems creepy, but then not much actually happens. There are some acts of violence, even killings, but it's no gore fest.

Go into it expecting heaps of atmosphere and not much else.

Yeah, that also would have been a great title! Slightly too long, perhaps...

As customary for Italian horror movies from the era late-60s and early 70s, this one struggles with an identity crisis. There simply were too many profitable concepts back then, and writer/director Mario Colucci either can't decide what he wants OR hopes to cash in on all of them at once. As a result, his film is partially Gothic horror, but simultaneously has Giallo aspirations, and blends in occult & supernatural elements. Usually, these horror sub-genre stews end up being a complete mess, but in case of "Something is Creeping in the Dark" it all works out surprisingly well!

I loved this movie straight from the cool opening sequences, with various cars on a forsaken road that pass or cross each other and the screen that atmospherically freezes to display the names of cast and crew. Eventually there are eight eccentric characters who find themselves isolated in a storm and cut off from civilization because either the bridge collapsed, or the roads are flooded. It's rather weird, though, because there isn't a drop of rain or a whistle of wind noticeable. They seek refuge in a spooky old house with an even spookier caretaker, and only there they realize what an odd bunch of characters they are. There's a married couple that hate each other, a duo of policemen that just captured a fugitive murderer, a mysterious professor, and a surgeon with his geeky assistant. Oh yeah, the caretaker also hides a naked girl in his bedroom. The wife of the unhappy couple suggests an orgy - that's what you do when you're stranded with strangers, right - but they prefer to hold a séance to call out to the spirit of the deceased female house owner instead.

You won't ever hear me say the script of "Something is Creeping in the Dark" makes much sense, or that it's a compellingly realistic fright tale, but Mario Colluci does manage to keep it interesting, entertaining, and occasionally even suspenseful. The séance, for instance, is effectively sinister and our director also makes excellent use of the creepy mansion and its scenery. The walls of the room where most of the action takes place are full of clocks. When they are all ticking together, and the crowd is silent, it has a rather scary effect. When all the clocks collectively stop ticking for no apparent reason, it has an even scarier effect. The build-up towards the finale is also very well-handled, and even though the ending itself is ridiculously basic, it worked for me! Not a great or highly recommendable piece of Italian horror, but fun to watch.

I first became aware of this (and its equally obscure director) via the *** star rating on the "Giallo" section of the "Cult Filmz" website; incidentally, I also did not know that Farley Granger had worked so extensively in Italy – in that Luchino Visconti's SENSO (1954) was no fluke (I recently watched him in a hybrid poliziottesco/giallo, and another good one it was, Massimo Dallamano's WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOUR DAUGHTERS? [1974])! Having mentioned the latter, this too is as much a horror piece as a giallo since it involves a manifestation brought about by a séance conducted at dead-of-night. The cast is quite interesting – not only mixing familiar/international names (including, apart from the afore-mentioned American actor, Italians Lucia Bose' and Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) with unknown faces, but there are even a couple of behind-the-camera personnel (producer Dino Fazio and renowned composer Angelo Francesco Lavagnino, who also supplies a fine moody score) in the significant roles of Police Inspector and Professor/Occultist respectively! The plot is the typical 'old dark house' routine throwing myriad characters together, stranded by bad weather in a remote and forbidding environment (adding plenty of atmosphere to the already dour brew); harking back to Agatha Christie's much-filmed "And Then There Were None" prototype rather than the traditional stalk'n'slash formula, it is something of a quintessential offering (thus undeservedly overlooked) in this regard. By the way, the notion of having the spirit at large possessing members of the household in turn to commit mayhem would be adopted by Hollywood much later for the not-too-bad IDENTITY (2003)! The still attractive (and former Miss Italy) Bose' was on something of a latter-day roll during this period – since, among others, she made two similarly notable (and likewise strange) efforts i.e. Romolo Guerrieri's THE DOUBLE (1971) and Giulio Questi's extremely-rare ARCANA (1972); unfortunately, her character is made to expire halfway through, but the actress nonetheless makes a lasting impression. Ditto Granger, uncharacteristically cast here as a hardened criminal, pretty much retains the youthful looks that had served the Hollywood veteran so well in his heyday; the film's marvelous – if somewhat abrupt – finale has him as the ghost's latest 'fall guy', to adopt a noir phrase (a genre which tended to elicit the best from the actor).

Strom rages and there is flooding.A group of strangers is stranded in a creepy looking house in the middle of nowhere.Among them are homicidal maniac Spike played by Farley Granger,beautiful and heavily drinking wife Sylvia(stunning Lucia Bose)and her husband Donald,two police inspectors plus professor,doctor and his nerdy assistant.The house is owned by mysterious butler Joe.During the séance the spirit of former owner Sheila Marlowe is summoned and people begin to die possessed in the dark...Mario Colucci's "Something Creeping in the Dark" is an obscure Italian horror flick with several truly weird and eerie sequences.I loved all the clocks running in the house.The score by Francesco Lavagnino is superbly moody and there is plenty of violence but almost no nudity.The plot is disjointed and hard to follow,but if you are in the mood for some rare Italian chiller give Mario Colucci's slow-burner a look.7 séances out of 10.

Well, I'm a massive fan of Italian horror; particularly Giallo and Gothic horror, so I was looking forward to this given that it's meant to be a sort of cross-over between the two. However, my hopes were dashed as Something is Creeping in the Dark is one boring and poorly made film! I spent an hour and a half watching this film, and yet I really have very little to say about it. The plot is wafer thin and simply focuses on the idea of a bunch of strangers being holed up in a spooky old house for the night. However, they're not the only ones there are some ghostly presence is there too! That's it really. The attempts to build up the characters and their relationships all fall flat, and all that is left to admire is the atmosphere; which isn't exactly anything to write home about as it's a carbon copy of the atmosphere in any number of similar films and director Mario Colucci fails to bring anything new to the table. The film was obviously made on a low budget and there certainly is worse films out there - but I seriously can see no reason to bother tracking this oddity down as there's many, many better films out there too!