EDITOR’S NOTE: Terror In the Crypt was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, October 7, 1967 at 1:00 a.m. It also appeared on November 21, 1970.

La cripta e l’incubo was released in the U.S. on TV by American-International Pictures and retitled Terror In the Crypt. The script was called La maledizione dei Karnstein and Ernesto Gastaldi said that he wrote it in a day. It’s based on Carmilla and is the third adaption of that book after Vampyr and Blood and Roses.

Antonio Margheriti was the intended director but was busy, so Camillo Mastrocinque, who usually made comedies, directed. He also directed An Angel for Satan. He was helped by co-writer and assistant director Tonino Valerii, who would direct some great Westerns like The Price of Power, Day of Anger and My Name Is Nobody as well as the giallo My Dear Killer.

Count Von Karnstein (Christopher Lee) claims that his family is cursed and the next victim is his daughter Laura (Adriana Ambesi).  She keeps dreaming of horrific scenes where she finds people with all of the blood drained out of their bodies.

That’s because Sira Von Karnstein, one of their ancestors, was killed for being a witch which has led to the family suffering for centuries. The maid conducts a ritual — with a hand of glory created from the body of a lynched and decapitated dwarf — that brings back Sira just in time for another girl to show up named Lyuba (Ursula Davis) and the murders — and an obsession between Laura and the young lady — to really begin.

This may start to feel like a cover version of some of your Italian gothic horror favorites — fog, skeletons, a woman being put to death and cursing everyone, white gowns barely covering gorgeous Italian women — but those are some pretty awesome things to bring back. I’m for all of it, including Christopher Lee as the hero.

You can watch this on Tubi.