Crypt of the Living Dead (1973)

Warning: spoilers ahead

Original title: La tumba de la isla maldita

aka (Young) Hannah, Queen of the Vampires

Engineer Chris Bolton (secret horror hero Andrew Prine) travels to a Turkish island once known as “Vampire Island” to retrieve the corpse of his archaeologist father who died there by being crushed by a sarcophagus while exploring a secret crypt.

We the audience already know that Chris’s dad was actually murdered by two vampire cultists, who did a bit of strangling and decapitating before crushing the man’s body. One of these guys we will soon enough learn is a writer called Peter (Mark Damon), supposedly a friend of Dad’s on the island to do research for a book taking place during the Crusades; the other (Ihsan Gedik) is only ever named by the credits as “The Wild Man”, and does comport himself accordingly.

Chris does of course know nothing about this, and is taken in by Peter’s charming and sane manner, his tales of his father, and his pretty teacher sister Mary (Patty Shepard). So much so, he’s staying as a guest with the siblings. While exploring the crypt, Chris learns of its history: apparently, one Hannah (Teresa Gimpera), the wife of king Louis VII. lies there, buried alive after having become a vampire by a husband who couldn’t stomach a proper staking. And her sarcophagus is still crushing down on dear dead Dad because the locals really don’t want to go into this crypt, nor do they have the appropriate know-how.

Chris, being a true engineer, believes nothing of the vampire story, of course, and for at least half the movie, he’s aggressively, rudely and condescendingly berating everyone who does, even Mary, a woman he’s clearly crushing on quite a bit. Well, at least he’s not a hypocrite. He’s also hell-bent on recovering his father’s corpse, something he does have the technical know-how for. Alas, while doing so, he has to remove the lid (well, humongous upper part, really) of Hannah’s sarcophagus, revealing a corpse completely free of any signs of decay, looking rather a lot as if the lady were only sleeping.

Of course, this provides the indeed real vampire with a nice opportunity to rise again and start to regain her powers by sucking the blood of an increasing amount of people.

Crypt of the Living Dead is usually seen in various public domain prints that leave out a lingering shot on Dad’s decapitated head and things of that sort. If you can find a decent looking version (I had the opportunity to enjoy a fan-made 86 minute composite), you might be surprised that this Spanish-US co-production directed by Julio Salvador with “additional scenes” by Ray Danton who is sometimes credited as the lone director despite Salvador most probably having done most of the work, is a good example of the virtues of Spanish horror films of this era, though neither as brutal as some, nor as loopy as others, nor as sleazy, and not containing Paul Naschy.

About half of the film is typical meat and potatoes early 70s horror filmmaking, enhanced by parts of the Spanish and Turkish landscape that look decidedly bleak and creepy as Salvador presents them, breathing the air of an earlier century. It’s pretty straightforward as these kinds of movie go. Or really, straightforward until the film makes one of various and regular small sideways moves. For example, it approaches its version of the vampire legend with a more medieval European bent, suggesting that early on, when she’s weak, Hannah doesn’t so much turn into a wolf as conjure him up to acquire blood for her, only later, when she’s actually free, truly turning into a wolf, or fog. It’s effectively vague and peculiar, putting a bit of distance between her and some of her vampire peers in the movies even though she’s still afraid of crosses, and is best killed by staking. Though she’s also very much allergic to “dogsbane”.

The film has quite a few of its best moments once the vampire is fully free, showing her gliding towards her victims while a lullaby-like melody sung by a female voice plays, suggesting psychic seduction in a rather effective and fairy-tale-like manner. Another wonderful, very effectively shot moment is her final fight with a by now vampire hunting Chris and a group of local fishermen on the beach, by night, only lit by her enemy’s torches. At this point, she has already been set aflame by Chris, looking gooey like a Lucio Fulci zombie now; the men surround her in a circle and drive her back to the bottom of the cliff she has just fell down. Then she begins to weep awfully, the men clearly being so shocked and taken aback by their enemy expressing anything so human, they barely manage to stake her before she can turn into fog and abscond again. It’s the sort of scene that alone would make the film worthwhile, but there are actually a couple of moments like this that suggest somebody involved in the production really knew how to combine their contemporary sensibilities with the more fairy-tale-like elements of horror and some good, old-fashioned nastiness.

Speaking of nastiness, even though this doesn’t go for the full-on 70s downer ending, the film’s pre-credit stinger is genuinely great, effective and pretty shocking, seeing how it uses children in a way hardly any filmmaker today would dare. The stinger is also properly prepared earlier on in the movie, quite against the way most horror films do this, and another sign that somebody involved in this film’s making cared quite a bit for the art of filmmaking.


So, if you manage to find a decent version of Crypt of the Living Dead, you might find yourself pleasantly surprised by a little gem of a movie.