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Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Terror Creatures From The Grave – Great Low-Budget Italian Horror

Lovely, raven-haired British beauty Barbara Steele stars in this 1965 Italian production. The 1960s marked a decade in which Steele starred in dozens of low budget horror films, such as Castle of Blood, The Long Hair of Death, The She Beast,  Nightmare Castle and The Pit & The Pendulum - just to name a few.
Steele plays the widow of a murdered occultist - Jeronimus Hoff, who helped to have her husband killed. The ghost of Hoff is seen in various places around the family mansion by his daughter. The mansion was once a hospital for plague victims of the Middle-Ages.  A curse of plague victims surrounds the mansion. 

A lawyer arrives at Hoff’s estate to check over his will after receiving a letter from the dead man. Steele and the family are confused at the lawyer’s arrival and the letter, since Hoff has been dead for a year. Steele tells the lawyer that Hoff was killed when he was drunk one night and fell down stairs in the mansion. It is later revealed that this statement is a lie.

One by one, members of a group that condemned Hoff’s occult practices begin to be murdered. One man is trampled by a horse in an opening sequence. Another man in a wheelchair impales himself on a sword. A third is found lying dead next to a table with acid pouring on his face.

To find out if Hoff is still alive, his grave is exhumed and found empty. This confirms his daughter’s fears that he is still alive.

In a flashback sequence, Hoff confronts the group of former friends who condemned him for his occult practices. He is struck in the back of the head and killed by one of the men in the group.

Plague victims rise from their graves around the family mansion and are killed again by pouring rain. This also ends the life of Hoff.

Actress Steele is considered one of the greatest “scream queens” in cinema history. Today, she enjoys a strong cult following of dedicated fans all over the world. Her beauty is timeless, contributing to her longstanding icon status as a horror actress.

Terror Creatures From The Grave was also marketed as The Tombs of Horror, Coffin of Terror and Five Graves For A Medium. Happy viewing!
Steve D. Stones


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