MILL CREEK DRIVE-IN MOVIE CLASSICS: Murder Mansion (1972)

EDITOR’S NOTE: We covered this wild movie of many titles when it was part of the Mill Creek Chilling Classics box set on November 1, 2018.

I love Mill Creek multipacks. Sure, the quality is abysmal at times. Often, you get the same films on multiple sets. And you get bad dubs. But let’s face it — often you can find these sets used for $5 or less and you get up to 50 amazing films. That inspired me to spend the month of November gathering some of my favorite writers and fans of the site to tackle the Chilling Classics box set.

Originally released as La Mansion de la Niebla (The Mansion in the Fog) and also known as Murder Mansion, this Spanish/Italian film fuses old school haunted house horror with the then new school form of the giallo.

The plot concerns a variety of people drawn to a house in the fog, so the original title was pretty much correct. There are plenty of European stars to enjoy, like Ida Galli, who also uses the name Evelyn Stewart and appeared in Fulci’s The Psychic as well as The Sweet Body of Deborah. And hey, there’s Analía Gadé from The Fox with the Velvet Tail. Hello, George Rigaud, from All the Colors of the Dark and The Case of the Bloody Iris! They’re all here in a movie that seems to make little or no sense and then gets even more bonkers as time goes on.

This was one of the 13 titles included in Avco Embassy’s Nightmare Theater package syndicated in 1975 (the others were MartaDeath Smiles on a MurdererNight of the SorcerersFury of the Wolfman, Hatchet for the HoneymoonHorror Rises from the TombDear Dead DelilahDoomwatchBell from HellWitches MountainMummy’s Revenge and The Witch). How did these movies play on regular TV?

There’s a history of vampires in the house, the previous owner was a witch and hey — this is starting to feel like an adult version of Scooby Doo with better-looking ladies. That’s not a bad thing. But if you’ve never watched a badly dubbed giallo-esque film before, don’t expect any of this to make a lick of sense.

Don’t want to buy the whole box set? This is playing for free on Amazon Prime.

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