Category: Anthology Movies

Tales From The Crypt (1972)

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.

Dr. Terror’s House Of Horrors (1965)

I’m a fan of Halloween and spending October watching horror movies, and Dr. Terror’s House Of Horrors (1965) was a great place to start – what a title! This British horror anthology film comes from Amicus Studios and naturally stars both Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Dr. Terror’s House Of Horrors starts in a train station where five passengers crowd into one train compartment for a night’s travel. The sixth passenger? Dr. Schreck (Cushing with a teutonic accent) and you might say Dr Eyebrows by what is going on with his upper follicles. As a master of the Tarot card, Dr. Schreck (or ashe explains, German for “Terror”) considers the fortune of each man, which leads to a self-contained tale of horror, five tales in 100 minutes, meaning the exposition is crammed in thick and fast, and each tale begets a different horror cliche (which I won’t spoil – half the fun is eventually figuring out what kind of horror story it’s going to be!). This was more kooky than spooky, but I had a great time, enjoying its pop art over-the-top quality; at times, it seems intentionally funny, other times unintentionally. Lee plays one of the passengers, a fussy Tory art critic who is in constant battle with a strange artist (Michael Gough) and a young Donald Sutherland is the one American occupant in the carriage. Neil McCallum, Alan Freeman and Roy Castle round out the rest of the passengers. Directed by Freddie Francis (later the cinematographer for The Elephant Man, the Cape Fear remake and The Straight Story) with panache and written by Milton Subotsky. Good fun in that it has the imagery and twists of horror but in itself is not really scary; as I said, more kooky than spooky. It would be the first of many Amicus horror anthologies including Torture Garden and Tales From The Crypt (the UK 70s version not the HBO series). Available on Amazon Prime and Tubi. Recommended.