5 tombe per un medium - Il mostro dell'opera

Digitmovies presents for the first time on CD the complete OST composed by Aldo Piga for the film “5 tombe per un medium” (aka “Terror Creatures from the Grave”), a Gothic horror film shot in 1966 by Massimo Pupillo, director of two other Italian horror movies of the 60s “La vendetta di Lady Morgan” and “Il boia scarlatto”. The film, starring the Gothic movie queen Barbara Steele (“La maschera del demonio”, “I lunghi capelli della morte”), Walter Brandt, Mirella Maravidi, Alfredo Rizzo and Luciano Pigozzi (a regular actor in Italian horror movies), tells the story of a notary (Brandt), who receives a letter from a doctor, researcher of occultism, who invites him to his villa to prepare his last will. Although the letter seems authentic, the lawyer discovers from the wife and the daughter of the mysterious doctor that the sender is dead for one year. Strange deaths and disturbing facts lead the young man to the chilling truth about the origin of the letter and the mysterious death of the doctor. Massimo Pupillo realizes one of the best Italian Gothic of the 60’s, filmed in beautiful black and white and full of evocative images, such as the showcase of the cut-off art pictures that come alive and the sinister creaking of the invisible pall bearer, announcer of death. Pupillo directs his horror masterpiece where horror is more suggested than shown. “Il mostro dell’opera” (aka “The vampire of the opera”) is one of the first Italian horror films directed by the specialist Renato Polselli. Filmed in 1964, starring Giuseppe Addobbati, Marco Mariani, Gaby Blanc, Carla Cavalli, the film is also known under the title “Il vampiro dell’opera”. A group of artists rents a theater for rehearsals of a show. Soon they discover the presence of a monstrous individual who sows terror and death by decimating the group. Eventually, the monster will be eliminated. Polselli, still far from his pop-psychedelic masterpieces such as “Riti, magie nere e segrete orge del trecento” and “La verità secondo Satana”, succeeded in making a good Gothic movie, strong through its very good location (the theater and its underground) and great black and white photography, despite the small budget and a story that draws elements from Gaston Leroux’s masterpiece “The Phantom of the Opera”. For our CD (TT 73:14) we used the mono master tapes of the original recording sessions. Aldo Piga has written two symphonic scores that give a wink to those of the British Hammer studios and of Corman’s American AIP productions with a wild performance of the orchestra which creates the background for the scenes of pure terror, alternated with moments of mystery. Both OSTs feature a main theme with ancient, almost Celtic flavour. In the film “5 tombe per un medium” you can hear a version of this theme performed by a little girl, but on the master tapes only a vocal which is sung both in Italian and English by an adult female, does exist. M° Piga reprises this charming theme with bass in a dance floor manner in the “End Titles” and its alternate versions as bonus tracks, backing tracks maybe purposed for a song on a record which then never saw the light in those days. For “Il mostro dell’opera” the author has used the musical saw and the Theremin, typical sounds of horror movies of the past, to describe scenes of tension and fear, alternated with nightclub dance floor tunes. As bonus track we include a rare and fascinating take in stereo performed by the Theremin.