REVIEW: Italian Giallo-adjacent Something Creeping In the Dark (1971, wri/dir by Mario Colucci, Italy) by Kymm Zuckert

“There are many things between Heaven and earth that do not concur with your philosophy, Professor Lawrence.”

Happy New Year! Yeah, I know it’s February, but I took January off, so this is my first 2022 post, so I’m allowed to say happy new year to you, I’m grandfathered in. 

Cinematic Void via the American Cinemateque currently residing at the Los Feliz 3 in Los Angeles does a great annual Giallo January, and I’m both a big Giallo fan and also haven’t seen that many films, so I went to all but one, and the last one was this pretty rare film, Something Creeping In the Dark, directed by Mario Colucci. 

It’s not a classic Giallo, in that it is a haunted house story, and in most Giallo, any supernatural elements end up being the work of people rather than ghosts or witches, but it’s an Italian horror film from the 1970s, so that’s close enough. It’s Giallo adjacent. It’s Giallo curious. 

It starts with a bickering couple driving through the sheeting rain to get to a party, when they are passed by a couple of policemen chasing a murderer. The police chase ends when the murderer sees that the bridge is out, so he stops and the police catch him, what with him just standing there and all. 

The bickering couple also stops, and they all turn around, meeting another car with a dashing surgeon trying to get to an operation, his lovely but uptight assistant, and an older professor, who tell them that the road is flooded the way they came. So they decide to stop at the creepy house that was near the washed out bridge, and all sing, “There’s a Light (Over at the Frankenstein Place).

That last bit didn’t happen, my point being that this situation is so Rocky Horror, but instead of the young couple stranded in a house full of weirdos, it’s eight weirdos stranded in a house containing a young couple! Who are kind of weirdos themselves, but the comparison still stands. 

The phone goes dead, the electricity goes out, and everyone is stuck for the night, kind of bored. The wife of the bickering couple, Sylvia, (Lucia Bosè) wants to have an orgy, and is making big eyes at the murderer, Spike. And who could blame her, since Spike is played by Farley Granger, who, in 1971, was a complete biscuit. He plays the piano, and she imagines him slapping her and kissing her and chasing her in slow motion, as one does. 

The young man living there, Joe (Gianni Medici), apparently the caretaker, tells them that the recently deceased owner of the creepy house, was super into the occult and would have seances in the very room where they were, at that very table over there. So of course, Sylvia wants to do that very thing, and of course they call forth her spirit, and then things go entirely pear-shaped. Lesson learned: if you are trapped in a creepy house for the night with no phone or electricity but with a murderer, just go to bed and lock your door and don’t start bringing back the dead. Be sensible.  

So, everyone gets possessed or has things happen to them in a supernatural manner, and Spike keeps escaping from the cops, and various ghostly things occur, until finally the sun comes up and they can all go merrily on their way, except for the ones who didn’t make it through the night. 

I think a scene must have been cut, because there were some characters who just disappeared without a warning, until they were casually mentioned in dialogue, and I was like, that is a scene that this film definitely wouldn’t have skipped over in such a fashion! But 50 year old 35mm prints have experienced some things over the years, and losing a scene could easily be one of them. 

All in all, this is a fun movie, classic Giallo or no, and a great start to the new year in February!

Kymm Zuckert is an actor/writer/native Angelino. When Kymm was a child, her parents would take her to see anything, which means that sometimes she will see a film today and say, “I saw that when I was eight, I don’t remember any of that inappropriate sex stuff!” Check out her entire 365 day blog @ https://365filmsin365days.movie.blog