Overtime

The reason this being one of the more obscure Giallos (or as purist would say: Gialli), can be blamed on "clever" promoters, who had hoped to cover more bases than were available. In the US they tried to market this off as a Living Dead flick. Needless to say that those expecting zombies were none too happy when no walking corpses appeared in the film. In Germany on the other hand, the film was marketed under the Titel "Das Geheimnis des Gelben Grabes" ("Secret of the Yellow Grave") as a Edgar Wallace movie. True, this novel was written by AN Edgar Wallace but not THE Edgar Wallace, and similarly, the fans of "Kraut Krimis" were disappointed, even though the film counts as final Edgar Wallace flick that was produced by veteran Artur Brauner.

So we better stick with the alternative English-title, "Etruscan lives again", and yes, the film has all the hallmarks of a Giallo: a mix of Psycho-Thriller, Who-dunnit, mix with gratuitous nudity, sex and violence.

The story itself is rather simple: An archaeologist Jason Porter discovers an ancient Etruscan grave in Tuscany. The grave features frightening wall-painting to Tuchulcha, an Etruscan demon of death and destruction. The excavation-sight happens to be under the property of the despotic musical-director Samarakis. This creates a great deal of tension, since Samarakis is married to Porters Ex-wife Myra. But jealousy and sexual tension takes a back-step, when a mysterious killer stalks the area, killing couples whom he catches in the process of love-making and disposes his victims with an Etruscan mallet. Soon everybody finds himself on the list of suspects and everyone seems to have their own skeletons in the closet: Jason, who still battles with the demons of alcoholism and having been confined to a mental-ward, the shady Samarakis, the gay Theatre-director Stephen and many other, all who seem to share some seedy background.

Like with most Gialli, "seedy" is one of the keywords. The Gialli was always considered the dirty cousin of the squeaky clean Kraut-Krimi, laden with lurid psycho-sexual images and sadistic violence, that's constantly pending between art and Slasher. "Etruscan lives again" makes no exception. The cast is well picked, all do a fine job and, as suitable, the viewer is never quiet sure if and which figure deserves any sympathy at all. That includes protagonist Alex Cord, whom the American audience will likely best remember for his role as one-eyed Michael in "Airwolf". Horst Frank, although only having a relatively minor role, steals the show as we had often done in this type of movie. Despite his character being a homosexual, Frank with his burning glare comes across as menacing and threatening as ever. Wonderful soundtrack, as is to be expected from veteran Riz Ortolani (though his sometimes schmaltzy sound isn't everybody's cup of Chianti) and Crispino does an admirable job, despite not counting among the big Giallo-directors like Bava or Argento. Crispino utilizes the wonderful landscape of Tuscany almost like a second actor, making the best of the locations (again, another trademark of any good Giallo).

Within the confines of it's genre, I'd give it a well-meaning 7/10, as a pure Psycho-Thriller perhaps a little less, since not everybody is comfortable with the Giallo-style, lurid storytelling and choppy structure. Again, I'd like to point out to whoever added the line "The first zombie movie to be filmed in anamorphic wide screen" in the trivia-section, I assure you: there are no Undead to be seen and those who get killed in "Etruscan lives again", stay as dead as a corpse can be.

I saw this for the first time recently and i didn't enjoy this.

I saw this only aft reading Coventry's glowing review.

The lead moustachioed actor Alex Cord looks like a poor man's Anthony Quinn.

The body count is low n the film very lengthy.

After a while i felt so irritated that i stopped caring who's killing who n why.

The only good part is the sun soaked settings n the dressing sense of the characters.

There is a sadistic character who burns spiders n grasshoppers n i expected the guy to at least pay for his karma.

The English title is very misleading as there ain't any dead coming alive and the movie has absolutely nothing to do with zombies. Its a boring murder mystery.

Just a quick note to all my fellow zombie aficionados out there.. the title of this movie is misleading. While the movie itself is not too bad, sadly there are no living dead here.

This movie is actually an early 1970's murder mystery, the dialogue at times is very dry, although not bad the whole way through. The directing is o.k however the editing is really quite sketchy (you know the kind where all the sudden an actor is in a new position instantly, or they've abruptly cut to a new scene.)

So if like me you planned on watching this to add another notch onto your undead movie collection belt let your search continue.

let's start to say that this movie is not available in Italy (neither DVD or even VHS). It's incredible if you think that this is an Italian movie and in Italy you can find all the sort of American z movies! (even the Americans realize z movies).

By the way this is a nice giallo, well directed and well acted, I like very much Alex Cord (he looks like the young Chuck Norris, but Cord seems much more athletic and stunning then Chuck). I think this one has a lot in common with Friday the 13th (the plot, some murders, motivation of the killer...) but it came out almost 10 years before Jason.

If you like slashers and gialli , you will like this one

This is a good but poorly paced Italian thriller from the 1970's. The plot concerns a series or murders occurring to people connected to a recently discovered Etruscan burial sight. One of the repeated shots is the face of the Etruscan demon god that was found on the wall of the tomb. As the police investigate the lives of everyone involved are revealed and wee see that not everyone is as innocent they would like us to believe.

A good, but not great mystery with supernatural overtones this movie is graced with good performances across the board. Better is the fact that the characters are very complex with no real clichés in the bunch. The film also keeps you off balance with some interesting camera work and music. The only thing that I'm not a fan of is the fact that the pacing is a bit to slack. There are several times when I would have liked them to move things on and not take a quiet contemplative moment. I'm probably over reacting but the desire to speed things up knocked down the rating a couple of points on this good thriller.