The Night Evelyn came out of the Grave – 1971
Director
Emilio Miraglia

Writers
Fabio Pittorru
Massimo Felisatti

Cast
Anthony Steffen
Marina Malfatti
Erika Blanc

Review by Wayne Malin

So-so Italian horror,

Handsome and wealthy Alan Cunningham has just been released from an asylum. He was put there after a breakdown he had when his unfaithful wife Evelyn died. He now picks up women who look like Evelyn, takes them to his remote castle, tortures them and kills them. But he seems cured later on when he marries Gladys–who looks just like Evelyn. But then people are being killed, Alan starts seeing Evelyn’s ghost, her tomb is found empty and he starts to slowly go mad…

The synopsis may sound strange but so is the movie! There’s plenty of things wrong with this: the plot refuses to make sense, the acting is pretty bad, the dubbing is awful and the film is relatively bloodless. Also there’s an astounding amount of misogyny in this (even for a horror film). It’s actually quite dull–until the end. There’s a double twist ending which caught me by surprise and it gets very bloody too. Still, that’s only the last 15 minutes or so–the preceding 80 minutes are hard to slog through. There is also a fair amount of nudity (all female of course) and the main actors are attractive–but that’s not enough to recommend this. Completists of Italian horror cinema but enjoy this. Also most of the DVD versions of this are in terrible shape–mine was incorrectly letterboxed, had faded color and nonstop jumps and scratches. One sequence even started with the top of the image on the bottom of the screen! So–beware. I give it a 6–mostly for the ending.