Dr. Terror's House of Horrors

 Amicus Productions is most famous for doing a run of horror anthology films in the sixties and seventies, and Dr. Terror's House of Horrors is probably the best known of them, at least after Tales from the Crypt. It's a fun collection of punchy horror stories that are told with humor but (mostly) no overt jokes. I have a lot of affection for it, and must have seen the whole thing a dozen times growing up (usually in fragments). It holds up really well.

 Five travellers sharing a train carriage are joined by a sixth passenger - And it's Peter Cushing! So you can deduce things are going to get macabre. Well, that and that the title of the movie. And that it's an Amicus horror film. So a pretty easy deduction, all in all - don't look so proud of yourself.

 Cushing plays Dr Schreck (which as one of the other characters helpfully points out, means Terror in German) with his usual melancholy, wit and gravitas. When his bag tips over and the contents are scattered on the floor, a pack of tarot cards comes tumbling out; Questioned about it by the other passengers, he explains that every human being has two final fates - one mundane and one supernatural, and that the cards reveal people's supernatural fate.

To be fair, that is one cheap-ass-looking pack of tarot cards.

 You know the deal; each person on the train compartment gets a reading, which then turns into a separate horror short. and the whole thing ends with a shock to cap off the framing device. It's well-constructed, and actually answers some of the questions you assume are just going to be left dangling; Credit the extra elbow grease to scriptwriter Milton Subotski, one of the Amicus founders.

 The first tale is fun, and the creepiest one of the bunch. An architect is called back to his ancestral home by the enigmatic widow who now owns the house to make some modifications. There he discovers that an ancestral curse is real when a werewolf starts attacking from the shadows. If you don't figure out who the villain is as soon as the menace is laid out, you haven't watched enough of these type of films.

 Next comes a science fiction tale about... a killer ivy plant. It's played completely straight while still indulging in shots of a houseplant turning ominously towards the camera with the appropriate musical sting, or showing first a leafy shadow and then the vine itself approaching an unsuspecting victim - all filmed and framed as if it were an approaching gloved hand holding a knife.
 What makes it extra special is that some scientists get involved at one point, and they then provide some very silly, scientific-sounding running commentary with utter solemnity. The tone reminds me of rival studio Hammer's Quatermass films, but, well, you know, kind of dumb. The fun kind of dumb.

 The third short is the story of a Jazz musician who, while on the West Indies, spies on a Voodoo ritual and decides to steal Damballa's sacred music to use in his compositions. It's got one of the best (and most overtly comedic) gags in the movie, plus three fun musical numbers.
 It's also pretty safe to say this was very cheesy even at the time it was released. It obviously hasn't aged very well, unwitting racism aside, but at least it's clear no offense is intended: the white protagonist is an absolute dick throughout and clearly deserves his comeuppance. My main problem with this is that when his just desert finally comes it's ridiculously underwhelming. Easily my least favorite out of this crop of tales.

 But that's all right, because next we finally get to Christopher Lee's fate. He plays the caricature of a smug, snobbish art critic with maximum relish, and it's a blast to see him having so much fun with the character.
 After thoroughly insulting an artist played by Michael Gough (British horror icon, Tim Burton regular, but best known in this house as Dr Flammond from Top Secret!), the artist turns back the tables on the critic with a prank that exposes him as a sham.
 The artist is a less than gracious victor, and his constant barbs drive the critic to murder. But after death the artist's hand comes back from the grave, slowly clawing its way towards the critic. There's some great effects work here with a mechanical severed hand that can actually crawl, in addition to the creative framing you'd expect that allowed them to use a real hand.
 This is an excellent horror tale - just the acting alone, both from Lee and Gough, would make it great, but it's also a cool, fun (if derivative) EC-comics style yarn that actually has themes and some depth. Great stuff.

 The last story features a very young Donald Sutherland as half of a newlywed couple who starts suspecting that his bride may be a vampire. It's a very plain, plodding tale that ends with a fun twist, but honestly it drags a little even at fifteen minutes.

 And then the movie is done after a final catchup with the six train passengers. The twist (because of course there's a twist!) is predictable, but it makes sense and is effectively creepy.

 So there you go. Uneven, as usual -  the curse of the anthology format.
 The effects, with a couple of exceptions aren't great, and the cinematography, save again for a couple of neat shots (there's a rotating shot in the first story that I liked) doesn't really call attention to itself; That's a bit of a shame, as director Freddie Francis is not just a legend in British horror (a Hammer veteran who also helmed most of the better Amicus films); He was also a cinematographer with a pretty stellar record (he'd go on to shoot The Elephant Man for David Lynch and Cape Fear for Scorsese). He also came off as a total sweetheart in the interviews I've seen him in. As is usual for this timeframe, there's no gore - just splatters of blood, used very sparingly.

 It's not particularly scary, but the intent here is more to have a good time than to go for the jugular - and at that, it passes with flying colour (bright red, of course).