From Beyond the Grave

FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE

Director ~ Kevin Connor

Writers ~ Robin Clarke, Raymond Christodoulou, R. Chetwynd-Hayes

1974, UK

Stars ~ Peter Cushing, Ian Bannen, Ian Carmichael

What these Amicus films lack in budget they often make up for in a wonderfully dreary British Seventies’ backdrop and knowing performances. Here, the central antiques shop itself is a memorably cluttered set that looks left over from a Hammer period piece. Then there are also the Seventies hairstyles and old school uniforms and British Rail, underlit flats, indistinct working class kitchen-lounges and bland modern middle-class homes. All this in itself gives an exotic unselfconscious rendition of the era. Like most of the era’s horror, it features all the recognisable faces: Peter Cushing, Ian Ogilvy, David Warner, Lesley-Anne Down. Diana Dors, Donald Pleasance, et al. Although only the second entry really works up to a satisfying conclusion, each story has a central virtue.

The first – ‘The Gatecrasher’ – offers the unforgettable face rising into the misty haunted mirror: it’s an old image, but for those who like simple chills, it still works.

The second – ‘An Act of Kindness’ – Ian Bennan is a broken-down ex-serviceman becoming involved with a street match seller whose daughter works black magic: that this father and daughter are played by the Donald and Angela Pleasance should have tipped him off that no good will come of it. The dejected husband’s loveless home and latent seediness gives this an almost Pinteresque atmosphere, all blunt dialogue and unspoken menace.

The third episode – ‘The Elemental’ – benefits from Margaret Leighton’s vibrant performance as the clairvoyant Madame Orloff, but the humorous execution does little for such a limp finale.

The last story – ‘The Door’ – has Ian Ogilvy buying a door possessed by an evil Eighteenth century spirit trying for immortality. Although the characterisation is bland and the story straightforward, the blue room and its malevolent, dusty spirit remain striking. This certainly haunted me as a kid, giving me that bedrock fear of a malevolence from another time/dimension just a door away; all my life, I have remembered that initial fright of the man glaring up from the blue room on other side of the door.

As slices of horror of a certain vintage, there is much to enjoy here, not least a genuine feel of creepiness in a somewhat British down-at-heel everydayness.