Directed by Emilio Miraglia
Written by Massimo Felisatti, Fabio Pittorru and Emilio Miraglia
Starring:
- Anthony Steffen as Lord Alan Cunningham
- Marina Malfatti as Gladys Cunningham
- Enzo Tarascio as George Harriman
- Giacomo Rossi Stuart as Dr. Richard Timberlane
- Umberto Raho as Farley
- Roberto Maldera as Albert
- Joan C. Davis as Aunt Agatha
- Paola Natale as Evelyn
Rating: 
Anthony Steffen plays a deranged pervert who has a thing for whipping redheaded hookers and then killing them. This is his unholy way of coping with his wife’s death, picking witless women who resemble his wife to exorcise his inner demons through sadomasochism. But then the luscious redhead shows up in her most passionate and amorous shape, sweeping the distraught Aristocrat off his feet and leading him to marry her thus capping off his sleazy misdeeds.
You get an old mansion, the infallible whodunit puzzle, and plenty of paranormal speculation, all the baroque trappings of an unassailable gothic giallo. And Emilio Miraglia at the helm shines with the uncanny extravagance of this kind of foolproof setup – pure style and zero logic, exactly what every Italian genre flick should aspire to be. So it’s easy to fall under its kinky spell. Yet what we have here on gorgeous display – the tale of an obsessed schizoid man trying to grapple with his own hell without much success – completely loses its momentum when all its otherworldly madness ceases to be merely implied and becomes part of a plot twist scheme that is, in my view, very gimmicky.
Once the intricate subjective developments cease to be about the marital tragedy of Anthony Steffen’s character, the storyline goes through odd metamorphoses giving the film a phonier feel than the one trying to rationalize an implausible scenario. I don’t mind the far-fetchedness itself, that’s part of the fun, what I do mind are the effective pathos and ominous ambiguities, well-established plot elements that the facile writing discards just to deliver a more convenient and over-the-top final answer (and explanation) as to the whys and wherefores of the bizarre events. It’s a startlingly sad yarn of obsession and insanity mixed with supernatural themes until the mundane subplot of greed takes over and it all falls apart.
Having said that, The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave is chock full of class, and I mean really classy stuff. Bruno Nicolai’s stately score smothering our pervy protagonist’s troubled psyche with melancholy and unease is one of the strengths of this gothic giallo. But stately music without compelling imagery is like a vast space without stars, so the sophisticated cinematography courtesy of Gastone Di Giovanni is constantly there to convey the moods of the convoluted storytelling and render everything eerily glorious, especially the mysticism behind Evelyn’s cursed image. And what could be better than such heady audiovisual interplay than to have it populated by despicable characters, they are so evil, so sick, that they ultimately turn the devious protagonist into both the good guy and the victim. The final irony is amoral, but amusing.