Victoria Silverwolf
Vegetarian Werewolf
Something Creeping in the Dark (Qualcosa striscia nel buio, 1971)
Italian combination of haunted house movie and crime film starts with the most familiar premise imaginable. A bunch of folks have to spend the night at a spooky old house because a flood has washed out the bridge. There's a bickering married couple who were on their way to a party to celebrate a woman's new nose after plastic surgery (!); a doctor and his nurse (or some other kind of assistant) on their way to do emergency surgery; an older professor, who was picked up by the doctor and nurse when his car broke down; and, adding the crime element, a serial killer (the mandatory American star, Farley Granger) and two police detectives who just arrested him. In residence at the place is a slightly hippie-ish guy (caretaker or squatter?) and his girlfriend.
There's a nifty scene early in the film. The killer proves to be an excellent piano player. As he plays a lovely melody, the married woman has a fantasy sequence in which she is dressed in a loose, translucent nightgown, moving in slow motion with the killer, who slaps her around and kisses her. She then stabs him several times, splashing blood on the wall, but he just laughs.
Back to the plot. It seems the house belonged to a woman, now dead, who messed around with occult. She was also accused of murdering her husband, but was acquitted. The married woman suggests a séance to pass the time. Bad idea. The dead woman possesses her husband, and lots of supernatural phenomena follow.
Another nifty scene. The house is full of clocks, ticking away all through the film. They stop all at once, and for the first time in my life I understood the phrase "the silence was deafening."
Back to the plot. Folks get possessed by the ghost, the killer gets loose, and people die. It's a slow-moving, nearly bloodless film, but I think it offers something for the patient viewer.
Italian combination of haunted house movie and crime film starts with the most familiar premise imaginable. A bunch of folks have to spend the night at a spooky old house because a flood has washed out the bridge. There's a bickering married couple who were on their way to a party to celebrate a woman's new nose after plastic surgery (!); a doctor and his nurse (or some other kind of assistant) on their way to do emergency surgery; an older professor, who was picked up by the doctor and nurse when his car broke down; and, adding the crime element, a serial killer (the mandatory American star, Farley Granger) and two police detectives who just arrested him. In residence at the place is a slightly hippie-ish guy (caretaker or squatter?) and his girlfriend.
There's a nifty scene early in the film. The killer proves to be an excellent piano player. As he plays a lovely melody, the married woman has a fantasy sequence in which she is dressed in a loose, translucent nightgown, moving in slow motion with the killer, who slaps her around and kisses her. She then stabs him several times, splashing blood on the wall, but he just laughs.
Back to the plot. It seems the house belonged to a woman, now dead, who messed around with occult. She was also accused of murdering her husband, but was acquitted. The married woman suggests a séance to pass the time. Bad idea. The dead woman possesses her husband, and lots of supernatural phenomena follow.
Another nifty scene. The house is full of clocks, ticking away all through the film. They stop all at once, and for the first time in my life I understood the phrase "the silence was deafening."
Back to the plot. Folks get possessed by the ghost, the killer gets loose, and people die. It's a slow-moving, nearly bloodless film, but I think it offers something for the patient viewer.
