La settima tomba (1965) User Reviews

Dan! Dan! Dan! Dan! Dan! Dan!

[Bezenby · 5/10 · 17 April 2017]

This one is so obscure that the version I watched had ended up on YouTube after being uploaded from an MP4 while originally being recorded onto a VCR from an Italian TV station. Please note that sometimes these films stay obscure and are never cleaned up because it's not worth the bother. This is one of those films, although I do appreciate that it has been preserved in some form.

Set in 'Old Scotland', a bunch of Americans are heading for an old mansion (yep, it's one of those films) but not before stopping at a local inn. Surprised that they make omelette in Scotland as well as England, they then head of to find that they are not the only heirs to the estate of one Reginald Jenkins, who died of leprosy. Also, his assistant escaped from a mental institution and also has leprosy. And one of the guests is psychic and particularly afraid of a table.

After being told by the lawyer that they've got to wait until another heir arrives, everyone decides to waste time by having a séance (that's where that scary table comes in handy). After some lengthy table tapping and a woman shouting 'Dan!' over and over, a spirit warns them to go, so naturally they all stay.

The Gothic horror part of the films works quite well, but once the housekeeper is found hanged the film staggers through the giallo bit with little enthusiasm. I blame this purely on the killer's fixation with moving bodies around or posing them at pianos to scare people, hitting people on the head lightly, or kidnapping people when he should have been cutting down the cast a bit. He (or she? or maybe even the table?) gets caught because they spend a lot of time explaining things when they should be removing people's blood.

It's a short film, and not a total waste. There are subtitles on the YouTube upload that are pretty all over the place. Not that I could do any better. And watch out for those Scottish omelettes!

The Seventh Grave

[BandSAboutMovies · 6/10 · 11 December 2023]

The only movie directed by Garibaldi Serra Caracciolo, who used the name Finney Cliff, The Seventh Grave is one wild movie.

Written by Caracciolo, Antonio Casale (who plays Jenkins in this movie as the Americanized name John Anderson; he was also assistant director using the name Paul Sciamann) and Alessandro Santini (using the name Edmond W. Carloff; he also directed and wrote La pelle sotto gli artigli and Questa libertà di avere... le ali bagnate, which was co-written by Renato Polselli). This all takes place in Scotland after Sir Reginald Thorne dies from leprosy. As happens in these movies, the family comes to his estate for the last will and testament to be read.

Attorney Bill Elliot (Nando Angelini) and his assistant, a waitress named Betty (Germana Dominici), prepare to tell who gets what to the assembled friends and family, who include Jenkins (Antonio Casale) and his mistress Mary (Bruna Baini); his brother Fred (Gianni Dei, Patrick Still Lives); Sir Reginald's assistant Patrick (Calogero Reale); Reverend Crabbe (Ferruccio Viotti) and Colonel Percival (Umberto Borsato) and his psychic daughter Katy (Stefania Nelli).

According to Sir Reginald's request, everyone must stay together for 48 hours and explore the mansion, as the treasure of Sir Francis Drake is hidden there. Huh? Well, soon Patrick is dead, the coffin with Sir Reginald's body is empty and Inspector Wright (Armando Guarnieri) is on the case.

This feels like The Cat and the Canary meets an Italian Gothic with a seance and a masked killer and oh, maybe we should add some psychic powers. I mean, that's exactly what it is. And I loved it. It's such a baffling movie, made with so many people who didn't do much else and I'm kind of obsessed with learning more about it.

Forgotten Italian Gothic mystery.

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 5/10 · 5 November 2011]

An American family travels in them carriage through old Scotland.They are going to the old castle of the dead Sir Reginald for the reading of the will.During a standstill in an inn they discover that their old relative is dead with leprosy.Then in the castle they meet the other relatives and during a black ritual they evoke the spirit of Sir Reginald,also to discover the hideaway of his treasure hidden in the castle.The soul of the old ancestor still lives in the castle and is raged for the greed of the descendants,so night after night he persecutes them making their stay a nightmare.This is the synopsis of "La Settima Tomba"-extremely rare and obscure Italian Gothic horror made in 1965.The film is quite dull and lacks suspense and eerie atmosphere.The location sets provide a bit of Gothic mood and it's nice to see young Gianni Dei of "Giallo a Venezia" infamy in a small role.Still "The Seventh Grave" is worth watching,but only for completists of forgotten Italian horror.5 tombs out of 10.

Off the beaten track Italian gothic

[Red-Barracuda · 7/10 · 9 January 2024]

You could be forgiven for not recognising the name of the director of this one - this was Garibaldi Serra Caracciolo's only film. And it's remained a pretty obscure entry in the Italian gothic cycle ever since. The story concerns a group who are travelling through 'Old Scotland' to a castle for the reading of the will of a dead relative, Sir Reginald. Before long the groundskeeper is found dead and Sir Reginald's body has vanished from the crypt. Could it be the dead aristocrat who subsequently stalks and terrorises these greedy guests?

I guess it would be fair to say that this isn't an upper-level example of this kind of thing. But then again, these old Italian gothics don't really need to do too much to basically work in my opinion. Throw together a crumbling gothic location, some spooky goings, some attractive black and white photography and a gorgeous gothic girl, and usually you're going to have enough ingredients to get over the line in this sub-genre. This film's no different, as it works due to its atmosphere and feel, more than its plot mechanics, which are as routine as most of these types of things are. It does have some effective moments though, such as the séance scene, where the greedy relatives try to evoke the dead spirit of their ancestor in order to locate the hidden treasure of Sir Francis Drake (!!?). This whole sequence is shot nicely with some interesting angles and it does end with the psychic lady repeatedly shouting 'Dan' in a way which somewhat improbably recalls a much later hilarious scene from 'I'm Alan Partridge' - I wonder if Steve Coogan saw this on late night telly back in the 80's, leading to the Seventh Grave influencing one of the greatest TV comedy characters ever? In all honesty, probably not. On a final note, it was kind of interesting to see a couple of obscure Italian performers appear in this one - Jenkins is played by Antonio Casale who was no less than the key character Bill Carson from the western classic The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, while Fred is played by a fresh-faced Gianni Dei who would go on to star in the notorious sleaze-fest Giallo a Venezia.

This weak mystery's a horror, alright

[melvelvit-1 · 28 October 2011]

Various interested parties gather for the reading of Sir Robert Thorne's last will and testament in an old Scottish castle reputed to house the hidden treasure of Francis Drake. Before the will is even read, the guests & heirs hold a séance to try and find the loot but are interrupted when Sir Robert's corpse vanishes from the family vault (he's 7th generation) and his grounds keeper is found hanging from the rafters...

Like quite a few other "horror" films, this is actually more of a mystery with sinister trappings -and not a very good one, at that. Sir Robert died (or did he?) of leprosy and experimented with cell regeneration in a basement laboratory before his untimely demise but what's so scary about that? The body count's low and the limited sets make it look like the filmmakers had access to a crumbling old castle and just slapped together a semblance of a story to fit the circumstances. The IMDb plot description couldn't be further from the truth.