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The death of his wife Evelyn has turned Lord Alan Cunningham (Anthony
Steffen) into a nervous wreck, and ever since he has made it his habit to
pick up the habit of
inviting redheads - mostly prostitutes - back to his estate, then giving
them a good whipping and simply murdering them ... basically because his
wife was also a redhead, and she at first cheated on him, then, when he
wanted a diovorce, she had him impregnate her to force him to stay with
her ... and then she died at childbirth (what has happened to the child is
never explained though). And since then it seems he hates redheads ...
Eventually, one of Alan's supposed victims, Susie (Erika Blanc) manages
to escape his clutches, but mysteriously enough, she seems to then vanish
into thin air.
Alan's friends, above all his psychiatrist Doc Timberlane (Giacomo
Rossi-Stuart) and his cousin George (Rod Murdock) grow increasingly
worried over Alan's state of mind - and would be even more so if they knew
about his little prostitute-killing-habit - and everyone agrees that Alan
should marry again.
... and eventually, Alan finds Gladys (Marina Malfatti), a woman who
hasn't got a red hair on her body (she's a blonde), the two fall in love,
and before long they are married. But soon enough, stuff starts happening
at Alan's estate that would suggest that Evelyn does indeed come back from
the grave, including a few murders. Alan, whose mental state seemed to
improve with his wedding, now grows more instable by the minute, which leads
to Gladys taking up some investigations on her own ... and soon enough she
finds Glady's crypt empty ...
Later, Alan goes to check up on his dead first wife, and he finds a
decaying corpse in her coffin ... thing is, the corpse then starts to rise
and goes after Alan - which leads Alan to have a complete mental
breakdown, and he is sent to Doc Timberlane's asylum, this time for life -
with his possessions divided between cousin George and Gladys ... who
suddenly prove to be a little too close for a mere coincidence. But the
last word in this tangled mystery is far from spoken ...
Now one has to admit, The Night Evelyn Came out of the Grave is not a
true classic of the giallo genre, its plot is quite a bit too
far-fetched and with a few too many plotholes (even in the giallo realm),
and while it's elegantly made it's not above genre standard and ultimately
finds quite a few too many excuses to show women in their naked beauty
(and the women are all great-looking to be sure) - and all that is
probably what makes this movie so great from a nostalgia point of view,
it's unapologetic genre entertainment that moves along at a brisk pace
ticking off all the right boxes along the way, leading to a wonderfully
twisted (and totally unbelievable) ending on a light pace.
So yeah, I totally liked it.
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