One of the many horror anthologies that British studio Amicus produced in the 1970s, Tales From The Crypt (1972) is based on the William Gaines EC comics well before HBO revisited them with a quippy animatronic ghoul in the 1990s. Here, the Cryptkeeper is played by Sir Ralph Richardson, basically wearing brown robes and acting quite imperious as sits down five wayward strangers who have become lost during a tour of a graveyard’s catacombs. Five strangers, five self-contained stories, transplanting their American comic-book origins into drab domestic interiors with reliable British character actors. I really had a fun time with Tales From The Crypt. To cover five tales in 90 minutes, well, it doesn’t mess about and gets stuck into each plot, with enough variety between the tales of terror and enough memorable bits of style and horror imagery to satisfy. I have a fondness for these old British anthology horrors as they can feel a bit quaint while conjuring a classic spooky tone, and this one is a rather satisfying entry in the genre, comparable to Dr. Terror’s House Of Horrors and even Romero’s Creepshow. It carries on the spirit of the comics in that the tales are mainly nasty people receiving a nasty fate through some strange turn. The cast includes a young Joan Collins, Patrick Magee (from A Clockwork Orange), Ian Hendry (from Get Carter), and of course, Peter Cushing (who apparently took his role, a more sympathetic one of a kindly neighbourhood widower, as a way of coping with the loss of his own wife). Directed by Freddie Francis who was also a successful cinematographer, particularly later on in Hollywood (Scorsese’s Cape Fear, Lynch’s The Straight Story) later on. Available to stream on Tubi. Recommended.
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