Un silencio de tumba (1976) User Reviews

Middle ground

[m0rg16 · 5/10 · 10 February 2018]

Jess Franco directs a rather lacking giallo, or at least thriller. It's a whodunnit set in a large Mediteranean villa - a setting as gialloesque as they come.

An all spanish cast and a rather simple intrigue fail to deliver anything beyond pure mediocrity however. While the plot tries to deliver some suspense, it's just not that adept of a film to succeed. There's also no classic killing setpieces, which is something this subgenre lives and thrives on. There's no sleaze either.

Instead it's a fairly slow burning thriller where people just turn up dead. In the end we get a revelation. There's nothing more to it. The Dorado Bluray, which I watched, contains a written but dismissed alternate ending. Apparently it was supposed to feature a much darker ending and I have to say the film would have been better with it.

Standard Mystery Thriller

[Theo Robertson · 4/10 · 14 August 2013]

A film crew depart for a remote island in the Atlantic Ocean . During a party the find that Christian the young child has gone missing and that a note is left saying if a ransom isn't paid then the child will die

This is a Spanish early 1970s horror film which in rough translation the title is TOMB OF SILENCE . With a heading like that you might be forgiven for expecting something along the lines of Gothic horror and being Spanish means perhaps a political subtext criticising Franco's fascist military regime . But no , this film contains none of this and is slightly confused not to mention very boring . In effect it's not even graphic enough to be described as a horror just a mystery of who has kidnapped Christian and the answer is a total shock as it appears Valerie is painted too obvious a candidate for the crimes and when the murderer is revealed it's never actually revealed how he was able to kill most of the victims since this would mean he'd have to be able to walk through walls or teleport about locations

Non-salacious Franco

[BandSAboutMovies · 4/10 · 10 February 2022]

So what if Jess Franco made a giallo? Or a takeoff on Ten Little Indians for that matter? And what if it concerned an actress named Annette Lamark (Glenda Allen, Confessions of a Window Cleaner) who invites her friends to an island that she's just bought - obviously her movies are doing well - that's home to the secret child she had with director Jean-Paul (Francisco Acosta, Sinner: The Secret Diary of a Nymphomaniac) who is being raised by her sister - and the movie's narrator - Valeria (Montserrat Prous, The Fish with the Eyes of Gold).

The kid gets kindnapped and anyone on the island could have done it. Well, anyone, that is, who isn't murdered.

Based on a book by Enrique Jarnes, who also wrote multiple Spanish TV series, this might be the most restrained I've seen Franco, but there's still something boiling under the surface. Made in the same location as The Sinister Eyes of Dr. Orloff, it may not be as good as that movie. That said, there are some reasons to watch this, if only to imagine that this could have been a soap opera directed by Jess that went on for several years and man, I would have to buy a gigantic box of it like that Dark Shadows set that has Barnabas Collins lying in a coffin on every slipcase.

Well-Made Thriller from Franco

[Michael_Elliott · 6 March 2017]

Un silencio de tumba (1972)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Famous movie actress Annette Lamark (Glenda Allen) buys a private island and one weekend she decides to have some friends out for a party. She also invites her sister Valerie (Montserrat Prous) who has just been released from a mental hospital. Pretty soon Annette's young son is taken with a ransom note left behind demanding money. Before long people begin to turn up murdered.

UN SILENCIO DE TUMBA isn't the greatest film from director Jess Franco but for the most part it's an interesting thriller that has the filmmaker getting away from some of the trashier films that he was making around this era. The film, also known as SILENCE OF THE TOMB, doesn't feature any graphic violence, gore, sex or even any nudity so it's not your typical Franco film. The film does manage to be mildly entertaining throughout thanks in large part to Franco's direction.

At just 84-minutes the film is certainly short enough but its biggest problem is the fact that there's really not too much that happens. There's certainly a "story" being told here but unfortunately there's just not enough of it to really hold your interest throughout the running time. The first fifty-minutes are pretty much just at a stand still as the sister constantly begins to suspect countless people before we finally get to the murders. I really wish the screenplay had been a tad bit better or at least did a bit more with some of the supporting characters.

There were some impressive things here including the direction by Franco. As I said, the film certainly gets away from some of the trashier elements that were in most of his films from this era so that's refreshing. I'd also argue that the music score is one of the better from any of the director's films. I also thought Prous was quite good in her role but then again the entire cast was good and helped keep the film moving.

UN SILENCIO DE TUMBA isn't a masterpiece or even a good movie. It's certainly well-made and is worth watching if you're a fan of the director.

Enjoyable if unexpectedly non-sleazy Franco effort

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 7/10 · 20 August 2021]

Hoping to forget a box-office disaster, an actress and her friends decide to spend the weekend hanging out, but when one of them notices a child has been kidnapped and held for ransom it causes a rash of murders to sweep the group forcing them to uncover the killer's intentions to leave the island alive.

This was a pretty solid if flawed slasher-style thriller. Among the more enjoyable elements here is the simple-enough setup that permeates plenty of intrigue for its later dispatching. Gathering everyone together at the island and trying to live out the decadence of their normal lives which infuriates the more level-headed sister enough that she secretly wishes them dead, this offers a simple scenario that offers a reasonable excuse to showcase their pettiness and social standings. By the time we get the abduction and their reaction spurring on the continuation of her psychological issues, this early setup starts the film off rather well. That becomes the main selling point for the film in the final half where it turns from the kidnapping thriller to the body-count slasher. Despite most of the scenes taking place off-screen and the group stumbling upon the body afterward, there's a fun atmosphere here as the gruesome nature of the incidents builds rather well towards the shocking finale. It comes off pretty interestingly where the revelation of the killer and their motivation is quite surprising as the back-and-forth nature of revelations against the discoveries of the other bodies is all handled quite well. These all have a lot to like with this one while there are some factors holding this one down. The main issue with this one is the general lack of action that carries on for the first half that makes for a tough time for some. All the work this does with the psychological issues about the groups' relationship with each other and the sisters' burgeoning hysteria comes at the expense of action that would pump up the excitement factor. Consisting of an endless series of melodramatic outbursts and conversations, it really highlights the dearth of activity here until the bodies start dropping around the hour-mark with very little happening before then. The other factor that holds this down is this tacked-on ending that goes on for longer than it really needs to. The emphasis on psychological explanations for the various murders and happenings is somewhat overbearing and doesn't land the way it should with that attempt at explaining everything followed by the feel-good finish. As well, there's also the rather problematic issue here with the lack of gore, sleaze or anything exploitative here since the storyline cries out for that stuff but is conspicuously absent, while all the murders being off-screen doesn't allow for bloodshed either. These aspects are what bring this one down.

Rated Unrated/R: Violence, Language, and children-in-jeopardy.

While a little tame, this darkly twisted tale remains a solid, profoundly enjoyable, Jess Franco thriller!

[Weirdling_Wolf · 8/10 · 23 January 2014]

While not exactly the consensus of popular opinion, but I actually consider, 'Un Silencio de Tumba' to be a rather magnificent, consistently enjoyable and surprisingly chaste, Jesús Franco thriller. The low-key, Agatha Christie-style pot-boiler concerns the delightfully fervid and soon to be murderous goings-on during a not-so swinging soiree held on a isolated island retreat. Maestro, Franco really delivers on the escalating tension and creepy atmospherics here; while many erroneously regard, Jess Franco as merely a hyper-psychedelic, hyperbolically-zooming, furiously febrile T & A man (and, to be fair, he might well be the best of the beast!) but he was also a highly skilled, visually savvy filmmaker, and I still genuinely feel that 'Un Silencio De Tumba' is ample proof of his refined artistic sensibilities. 'Un Silencio de Tumba' is a cracking yarn, and would most certainly be of interest to all obsessive Euro-cultists and uber-biased Franco assessors alike! Top (glory) Hole!!!! And like many other laudable, Franco efforts, this sterling mystery also boasts a tremendously effective, sweetly sexy score by, Jesús Franco and Fernando García Morcillo!