Crypt Of The Living Dead
- Css Darth-Sheol
- Jan 26, 2015
- 3 min read
Crypt of the Living Dead sounds like a rather generic title, but it's actually a fairly decent old horror film. When a man is murdered in an old crypt on an island his son, Chris, comes to retrieve the body and bury it. The problem is that there’s a conspiracy to release a 700 year old vampire trapped here. Rubbish right? Maybe not. The corpse is impossibly well preserved to be in a state of decay for so many years. Maybe they should seal her up again just in case, but maybe they’re too late…
Chris must battle this ancient vampire queen and her misguided followers before the woman he has fallen in love with falls prey to the evil. He is but a mortal, and a skeptical one at that, not exactly the type to know much about fighting the undead. How can he survive this?
This is about as well written as any old vampire movie I’ve never heard of, ummmmm, which maybe doesn't say a whole lot since there's a reason these often remain obscure. I had low expectations yet found myself more or less engaged just about from start to finish. There’s a pretty good pace with a great balance of building up to the vampire with the lore along side the skepticism from those that “know better” and then the supernatural itself. The tone is suitably dark and manages to occasionally be creepy. It’s still campy at times but not as bad as some old horror flicks.
One thing that confuses me is that the movie was made in the 70’s and says it’s in color yet the versions I’ve seen have been in black and white. I’m not sure why that is. It otherwise feels more like a 70’s flick than an older one. In some ways having it in the old style works, it gives it that classic monster movie feel (a la Dracula) that is fun. On the other hand the production quality is low (which I’ll detail in the buying guide) which hinders the viewing experience. Higher quality might have brought this up a notch. I’m not sure if the lack of color was intentional for effect or part of the quality problems.
Acting varies. I’m not sure I would go so far as to call anyone truly good, but most aren’t bad. I say “most;” there are some that are pretty weak. I do think vampire queen Hannah is really good, although mostly all she does is lie/stand around looking creepily pretty. The lead star Andrew Prine does a pretty good job with his grieving son / reluctant hero role.
A couple of the action scenes are kind of goofy. In one case a villain calls off an attack for a reason I find poorly played out. Most of the action is fine, though. I’ve seen much much worse in low budget horror.
My only other real problem is with a portion of the story. Chris, the grieving son, is the biggest, perhaps even the only, skeptic of the vampire lore. It sounds like drivel to him. Suddenly he goes from no belief to no doubt even before anything undeniably strange starts happening. He has fallen for the pretty young teacher who believes in the superstitious stories so it could have played out that she convinced him or that he feigned being convinced to win her over. It could have even been that he was so in love that he didn’t want to take any chances with her safety no matter how ridiculous the stories were. However, if there is any explanation given for his sudden and complete change of stance I missed it.
MORALITY:
The movie is rated R, but I’m not sure it deserves it. There is very little strong language, almost no sexuality, and no nudity.
It does have some bloody violence and scenes that might be scary to youngsters, but most modern audiences are likely to find them more campy than scary.
SPIRITUALITY:
We're dealing with the undead. This vampire queen is more akin to the unholy monster of old than the romantics in modern stories.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
I would recommend this movie to anyone that likes old vampire flicks. I enjoyed it, though difficulty with dark video and distorted audio hurt my enjoyment. A higher quality version might be worth checking out if one exists.
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