La mansión de la niebla

Unusual and likable Spanish/Italian co-production that plays something like a seventies Spanish, Old Dark House with giallo elements. Split more or less into three parts, the beginning takes place on the road, the middle introduces us to all the varied peoples holed up in the mansion in the fog and the final 25minutes are pretty wild action all the way. In truth there is nothing particularly violent or sexual but all the ladies are lovely, we really don't know what's going on any more than they do and we care enough to stick with it to find out. Worth it? Yes, I reckon so, it's just that little bit different and even the 'posh' English dubbing seems to help the strangeness that permeates the whole film.

You no doubt have run into this theme time and time again- some people get stranded on a VERY foggy night, and they're forced to seek refuge in this spooky ol' house. Of course, the house is in an isolated locale. Of course, it's located next to a cemetery. Of course, the owners are creepy people. Of course, the house is rumored to be haunted. And, of course, the guests' stay and slumber are disturbed by the strange and haunting goings-on that we've come to expect in stories like this. We've seen it all before, from Scooby Doo cartoons to the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. And so the cast goes through the motions while the audience goes through the motions of watching them and pretending not to know what will happen. The closing scene is ludicrous- how many pistols can fire 17 shots without being reloaded? However, it's not a total loss. The acting is marginally better than usual for a low-budget film like this. The production and sets are fairly good-looking, the background music is satisfactory, and there is some atmosphere of eerie calm which actually works. So I would recommend this film to people who really like haunted house movies.

Fine Italian-Spanish Giallo packed with thrills , chills ,intrigue and twists and turns . Entertaining Giallo full of vicious killings , suspense and eerie events . This genuinely mysterious story deals with a couple (Andres Resiono , Lisa Lombardi), lost in thick fog, take refuge in an old manor next to a cemetery . In the mansion strange things start to occur and happens several murders with bloody and gruesome executions. There someone is killing people and some clues seem to implicate about anybody are dieing . Before their unfortunate accident wreck , rich heiress, weak-hearted Elsa( Analía Gadé), recently recovering from a nervous breakdown due to the death of her daddy (George Rigaud) . In addition ,wealthy Elsa's husband (Albert Dalbes) is away frequently, so she usually thinks for him . Meanwhile another coupled called Mr & Mrs Tremont (Eduardo Fajardo & Yelena Samarina) also runs off the road and into an embankment near the graveyard , encountering two mysterious, enigmatic zombie-alike shrouded in darkness, one corpulent man dressed in chauffeur style and a pale-face woman slightly behind him . The trio encounters the mansion , discovering that the Tremonts inside, having been in a car crash with another driver , a sex-obsessed , drunk Mr. Porter(Franco Fantasia). This group finds that the mansion has an owner, the sinister Martha Clinton (Evelyn Stewart or Ida Galli), who bears remarkable resemblance to her deceased aunt condemned for vampirism and witchcraft . Meanwhile the series killer goes on a real massacre on various unfortunate victims as a woman is hung , another attacked in the graveyard . Slowly more people are found dead and Fred (Andres Resino) investigates the strange killings with numerous suspects .

Successful Giallo is compellingly directed with well staged murders plenty of startling visual content , though was submitted to limited censorship in Spain . This is a customary Giallo where the intrigue, tension, suspense appear threatening and lurking in every room , corridors and luxurious interior and exterior . The picture packs atmospheric blending of eerie thrills and creepy chills combined with a twisted finale . It displays lots of guts and blood but it seems pretty mild compared to today's gore feasts . It's a solid movie , a thrilling story plenty of suspense and intrigue in which the victims seem to be continuous . The staged killings are the high points of the movie , they deliver the goods plenty of screams, shocks and tension . The intriguing moments are compactly made and fast moving ; as the film itself takes place from various red herrings . It packs tension, shocks , thrills, chills and a little bit of blood and gore . There's plenty of moments of excitement and a number of scenes that are quite thrilling , resulting to be definitely the spotlight of the film the surprising ending situation . Well filmed in location in Madrid and Guadalajara surroundings . Good ambiance design and acceptable production design by Perez Cubero who along with Galicia created lots of sets in several Western filmed in the 60s and 70s . Colorful and brilliant cinematography in Maria Bava style by Mancori . Frightening and thrilling musical score by the Italian Marcello Giombani.

The picture is professionally directed by Francisco Lara Polop in his first and the best film along with the prolific filmmaker Pedro Lazaga . Francisco Lara's so-so direction is well crafted , here he's less cynical and more inclined toward suspense and lots of killings , he's an expert on comedy though directed another terror film as ¨The monk¨, his last movie . Talented and versatile writer/director Pedro Lazaga has made a vast array of often solid and entertaining films in all kind of genres but especially comedies starred by Spanish comedian Paco Martinez Soria and made a successful Peplum , ¨The seven Spartans¨. Rating: Acceptable and passable , this is one more imaginative Giallo pictures in which the camera stalks in sinister style throughout a story with magnificent visual skills. This is a bewildering story , funny in some moment but falls flat and it will appeal to hardcore Gialli fans

This minor and bargain-bin budget entry in the "travelers gathered in creepy mansion" genre is surprisingly good and effective.

A bunch of characters wind up spending the night in a Gothic home near a cemetery, where legends about the undead abound. The film isn't very adept at introducing us to these people in a way that makes it clear who they are and how they're related to one another, but the only thing that's important anyway is that one of them is the wealthy wife of a dissatisfied husband with serious daddy issues and a history of nervous breakdowns. She's convinced that she saw a giant man dressed as a butler joined by an old woman lurking in the cemetery, a story that the hostess is only too happy to corroborate with her own tales about the dark and eerie history that surrounds the place. People start dying, a couple of the more curious house guests suspect that something's afoot and go investigating, and there you have your movie.

By the time the film is over, it's more mystery than horror movie, but it's fairly cleverly plotted for the kind of movie it is, and it does manage to effect a couple of genuinely creepy moments. Keep in mind that this is super low budget obscure cinema we're talking about here, so everything is relative, but within that narrow definition, this film isn't half bad.

Listed at IMDb as "Maniac Mansion," but the version I saw was titled "Murder Mansion."

Grade: B

Despite its hoary silent-era plot, this is a nicely atmospheric minor chiller from Spain. Actually, it's as much a mystery-thriller as a horror pic, having some stylistic elements in common with the Edgar Wallace series, but the spooky mansion and cemetery sequences would not be amiss in a Margheriti or Corman classic. The director and art director fill the screen with significant details and the brooding color cinematography is suitably eerie, if a mite garish (it was the 70s, after all). The cast is attractive, particularly Lisa Nardi, who's quite a dish in shiny leather jacket and tight bellbottoms; unfortunately, it looks like a few nude scenes were clipped for the American release. There's no gore to speak of, nor much Rollinesque artiness, just good old-fashioned gothic chills. Definitely worth a look for connoisseurs, but not quite a "keeper".