Tag: Patrick Magee

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.

The Masque Of The Red Death (1964)

Delving further into the Blu-Ray boxset of Vincent Price movies I received last Christmas, I watched another Roger Corman directed Edgar Allan Poe adaption, The Masque Of The Red Death (1964), which I believe is one of the best of them. Set in Medieval Italy (though no Italian accents, mainly British aside from our main character), Price plays the delightfully wicked Prince Prospero who worships Satan, kidnaps a young Christian villager Francesca (Jane Asher) for his own designs, and holds an ongoing party for his wealthy friends within the walls of his castle as the red plague sweeps the land, spreading and killing all of the poor villagers. Meanwhile the Red Death itself (John Westbook) waits outside like a Roger Corman version of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. Alongside Price’s devilish performance, Patrick Magee from A Clockwork Orange plays a sinister lord and Hazel Court is Prospero’s wife who plans to give herself to Satan. This movie has a great visual style thanks to cinematography from a young Nicolas Roeg. The presence of the Red Death (clad in red robes with red skin) is striking as are the coloured rooms of the castle. The film apparently used sets left over from the film Beckett, and there’s enough overall intrigue (and subplots) to keep it all cooking right up to the satisfying comeuppance for Prospero and his wealthy guests. Watching it now, the story’s symbolism made me think of the 1% and climate change as the oncoming spectre of death avoided by a closed wall community (there could be a new version with that theme in mind). Recommended.