The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave was an okay watch. I felt like the overall story was decent (in a disjointed, Italian-horror way), it moved along at a reasonable pace, and had some good twists and turns. There are a couple of big things that make it fall on just the "not recommendable" side of things, but it's mostly okay.
Big thing 1 - Our main character Allan (Anthony Steffen) is essentially a serial killer. I think we're supposed to feel bad for him because of the trauma he experienced after the death of his wife (the titular Evelyn). By the end, he's almost portrayed as a hero/martyr, but when we first meet him he's bringing a prostitute to his isolated castle and then proceeds to murder her. And once he gets married, he beats his wife. Hard to get behind this guy.
Big thing 2 - It's hard to watch. Not like it's too violent or shocking - it's literally hard to see what is going on at times. I'm not sure if it's because of the fact that it's a poor transfer on the part of Mill Creek (it's on the "50 Tales of Terror" budget pack), or if the filmmakers were trying to make things disorienting, but it's bad news at times. The camera shakes around WAY too much (they could have used a steady-cam for sure), and there are some night scenes where you literally can't tell what you're supposed to be watching.
The story? Prostitute murderer Allan is a wealthy English Lord who has suffered a nervous breakdown following the death of his wife Evelyn. He has a couple of family members who may be interested in his well being, but may also be only interested in their cut of the family inheritance. Allan has a big estate in the woods where he spends his time murdering women and raising foxes. His doctor (who *might* be aware of his murdering? - he says several times that he needs to cure Allan of "his attacks") suggests that getting married will help cure him. So, he goes out and finds a woman at a party and instantly asks her to marry him. She knows he's loaded, so agrees to do so. It's pretty shoddy storytelling, really. Despite his marriage, Allan descends even deeper into madness. What will happen to the family fortune? Will Allan's increasingly violent behavior spell doom for his new bride? Will the memory of Evelyn be a blessing or a curse? Will you even be able to see any of this happen? Tune in to find out!
Not only is it hard to follow visually, it's kind of hard to follow story-wise. According to imdb, The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave "is known to have 9 different edited versions... with an English language track. Some of these are re-ordered so bad as to be completely incoherent story-wise." I'm not sure which cut Mill Creek got, but my notes are filled with question marks and have a lot of entries like "I don't really know what is happening" and "no real flow, and it doesn't make much sense." But sometimes, I find that kind of incoherence charming... and once the entire tale is told, I give it a 5/10 in terms of making sense.
Other than that, it's hard to talk about without totally ruining it, because the bulk of the plot/action takes place in the final 10 minutes. But I did learn if you want to kill someone with a snake, just put it's head near the person you want to kill. It will bite them! And, it did have a scene in a strip club (complete with one of the worst live-band:soundtrack syncs in recent memory) where a stripper starts her act by coming out of a coffin. I kind of can't believe I've never seen that before. (Not that I've been to a lot of strip clubs - but I have seen a lot of strip club-based horror movies.) So, there's that.
Ultimately, it's just a little too disorienting to sit down and watch, and the payoff just isn't quite worth it. If there's a better (non-budget pack) version out there, it could be kind of fun to see how it compares to this one. But otherwise I'd say it's for the hardcore/completist Italian horror buffs only.
I would probably not recommend this film.
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