A stormy castle, dark shadowy corridors, dusty old tombs, heaving bosoms, a creepy housemaid, flickering candles: if you've seen more than a handful of Euro gothic horror films, you'll know what to expect with Terror In The Crypt, just one of several films based on Sheridan Le Fanu's classic novel Carmilla. Hell, this film even has a hunchback! And yet, despite all the right ingredients, director Camillo Mastrocinque fails to generate the ominous atmosphere necessary to make it all work, largely thanks to an dull script that goes round in circles and a pace that plods like a knackered mule. Even the presence of legendary horror thesp Christopher Lee does little to improve matters.
Lee plays Count Ludwig Karnstein , whose beautiful daughter Laura (Adriana Ambesi) suffers from a series of terrible nightmares in which members of her family are murdered, something that also occurs in reality. Concerned that his daughter is possessed by the spirit of witch Scirra, who centuries earlier cursed the Karnstein family, the Count hires historian Friedrich Klauss (José Campos) to try and find a portrait of the wicked woman and so identify the killer. Meanwhile, Laura befriends pretty houseguest Lyuba (Ursula Davis), who might just hold the key to the mystery.
A couple of cool scenes - the hunchback hanging from a bell rope and the dead housemaid sitting up in her coffin - hint at what might have been given a tighter script and a less leisurely approach, but as it stands, this is one for gothic horror completists only.
Lee plays Count Ludwig Karnstein , whose beautiful daughter Laura (Adriana Ambesi) suffers from a series of terrible nightmares in which members of her family are murdered, something that also occurs in reality. Concerned that his daughter is possessed by the spirit of witch Scirra, who centuries earlier cursed the Karnstein family, the Count hires historian Friedrich Klauss (José Campos) to try and find a portrait of the wicked woman and so identify the killer. Meanwhile, Laura befriends pretty houseguest Lyuba (Ursula Davis), who might just hold the key to the mystery.
A couple of cool scenes - the hunchback hanging from a bell rope and the dead housemaid sitting up in her coffin - hint at what might have been given a tighter script and a less leisurely approach, but as it stands, this is one for gothic horror completists only.