THE
NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE (1971)Director: Emilio Miraglia
Eclectic
THE
NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE (1971)Mostly a giallo in its execution,
THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE was passed off as a horror film to U.S.
drive-ins (with a poster depicting a skull-faced lingerie babe holding a decapitated
head) and was later a staple of late-night TV, albeit numerous edits. The mix
of kink, weirdness and supernatural cheats has had a disappointing history of
releases on VHS, as well as budget DVD, and Eclectic is the latest company giving
it a stab.
Taking place in a swinging 1970s London, the film has Lord Alan Cunningham (Anthony Steffen), a nutso wealthy playboy, living in an enormous mansion. Cunningham's redheaded wife has died, so now he has a habit of bringing strippers and hookers (beautiful redheads of course) home for some kinky fun in his torture chamber, sometimes ending in murder. Later, our mentally ill rich kid meets a blond named Gladys (Marina Malfatti), instantly falls in love with her, and marries her. He has constant hallucinations of his late wife, and more people end up dead around the Cunningham estate.
Despite
some plot-dragging and terrible English dubbing, THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF
THE GRAVE has some superior chills, a kitsch gothic 70s style, infrequent gore
(a woman is lopped over the head, then fed to a cage of foxes), and almost as
many beautiful Euro babes as the Richard Burton BLUEBEARD. Erika Blanc (THE
DEVIL'S NIGHTMARE) is a dancer who does a sexy stage act, wiggling her fanny
out of a coffin to some rocking guitar riffs, and is later chased half-naked
through a torture chamber. Its unlikable characters include an array of red
herrings, and you'll recognize many of them, including Giacomo Rossi-Stuart
(THE LAST MAN ON EARTH) and Umberto Raho (BARON BLOOD) from other Italian horrors.
There have been a few budget DVDs
of THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE, but Eclectic's back cover promises,
"Finally, A LETTERBOXED Edition of The Euro-Trash Horror 
Classic
in all it’s UNCUT Glory" and "Gorgeous Digital Transfer."
Well, running nearly 99 minutes, it does seem to be the full uncut U.S. version,
but being "letterboxed" is another story. The original 2.35:1 Techniscope
image is not represented correct here. The transfer has slight black bars on
the top and bottom, and the would-be anamorphic image looks very squeezed and
tall, still cropping picture information on the sides. The print source appears
to be the same one used by Sinister Cinema for their VHS tape and DVD-R. The
well-worn print shows scratches (especially during reel changes) and muted,
sometimes faded colors that fluctuate in the course of the running time. It's
not dupey, but soft-looking, and some scenes are very dark. All the nudity appears
to be there, but some of the jump cuts pop up during these exploitive scenes.
The sound is troublesome too, with a lot of surface scratching, but passable.
There are no extras on the disc.
Eclectic's release of THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE might be the best
version of the film currently on DVD, but hopefully the definitive one will
still someday see the light of day. (George R. Reis)