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.

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.

While not exactly the consensus of opinion, I actually found 'Un Silenzio de Tumba' to be a rather magnificent, enjoyable and surprisingly chaste Jess Franco thriller. The low-key, Agatha Christie-style pot-boiler concerns the fervid, and soon to be murderous goings-on during a not-so swinging soiree held on a isolated island retreat. Franco really delivers on the escalating tension and creepy atmospherics here; many erroneously simply think of him as a hyper-psychedelic T & A man (and, to be far, he might well be the best!) but he was also a highly skilled filmmaker, and I genuinely feel that 'Un Silencio De Tumba' is ample proof of his fine artistry. 'Un Silencio de Tumba' is a racking yarn, and would certainly be appealing to all obsessive, euro-cultists and uber-biased Franco obsessives alike! Top Hole! (And like many other laudable Franco efforts this also boats a tremendously effective score)

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 dieThis 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