Tales From the Crypt

 Hello boys and ghouls! Except that we can't have any of that rubbish here, this is a respectable crypt. Take your screeched word play and punning across the pond, thank you. Here the crypt keeper is an imposing monk played by the Supreme Being himself (Sir Ralph Richardson); He presides over a chamber in the catacombs* into which five doomed tourists wander, their secrets to be spilled on the cold ground for our perusal like so many shambles for a haruspex to rummage through; Their sins exposed, and the exact manner of their deaths foretold.

 You know the drill - it's horror anthology time!

 The first tale is that of Joanne (Joan Collins), a woman who decides to end her marriage on a Christmas eve with the business end of a fire poker... only to be terrorized herself by a maniac (introduced by an urgent radio news report, which helpfully tells us he escaped from an asylum; Classic).

 It's an immaculately crafted short, with some truly memorable shots and ideas. The murder itself is iconic, and the fact that Joanne decided to do her husband in with their cute little daughter sleeping just a staircase away gives some extra lurid...ness? Luridocity? to the proceeds - not to mention a really fun twist later on.

 The ironic wall-to-wall use of Christmas carols is also a nice touch; It's a familiar device by now, but at the time it must have felt like they were getting away with something. Note that this predates Christmas Evil's killer Santa by nearly a decade.

 Next up is the story of a man (Ian Hendry) who tries to abandon his family for his mistress, only to suffer a car accident as they drive away. The rest of the episode is shot from the point of view of the man as he gets away from the flaming wreck, sees people screaming in horror as the gets near... and yeah, it's pretty easy to see where things are headed. There's a fun shot at the end when we get to see the face the filming style was so studiously hiding, but it's too little, too late, and not enough to compensate for a predictable story with a hilariously naff crash scene.

 Then it's time for some nasty class warfare as a rich douchebag (Robin Phillips) takes it upon himself to get rid of a saintly older man (Peter Cushing) whose house is driving prices down in the neighbourhood, in as cruel a way as possible. It's a remarkably sad segment, made particularly heartbreaking by an incredible performance from Cushing at his most charming and vulnerable; we can see the exact moment his will is broken, and it's not pretty. This being a Tales From the Crypt tale you can take heart that at least there will be some gory comeuppance... but that feels like an afterthought. The actual horror has already run its course. Beautiful story, and the payoff features some great make-up effects.

 Richard Greene and Barbara Murray then act out their own version of The Monkey's Paw as a married couple who try to wish themselves back to wealth, with foreseeably tragic results. The twist is that the characters are aware of The Monkey's Paw, comment on how their situation is similar to it, and try to avoid things going wrong... try being the operative word here. It's not a great tale - the script (by Milton Subotsky, Al Feldstein and Johnny Craig) clumsily ties itself into knots whilst guiding the tale to its gory ending; Then again... it really is one hell of an ending.

 Last we dive again into the trenches of class warfare with the tale of another rich prick (Nigel Patrick) who takes over a nursing home for blind people, and tries to run it as he did his military camps. In a brutal drive to cut down costs - reducing heating and rations and even the number of available blankets - he incurs the enmity of one of his charges (Patrick Magee), especially since the asshole is living the high life in his well-appointed office.
 When one of the blind men dies as a result of the superintendent's miserly nature, they grimly set about the task of getting even, Tales From the Crypt-style. The vengeance itself is grand and well worth the price of admission but I found the lead-up to it, as well done as it is, to be a little too stretched out for my taste.

 Once that's done all that's left is to tie up the framing story, which the movie does with verve and a lot of charm. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and as usual one of the stories doesn't really fit in within the logic of the collection at all. Not a huge issue, but it is a bit jarring.

 Put out by the redoubtable folks at Amicus studios, Tales from the Crypt is really fun compilation with stories of variable quality, but that's ever the case. What most struck me is the quality of the acting: the bar is set ridiculously high by Cushing, but Collins is great (as usual) as a beleaguered ice queen, and Patrick McGee's wounded dignity is also something to behold.
 Director Freddie Francis does some superb work in the first and last segments, particularly, and while this is a 1972 movie, there's a surprising amount of the era's signature bright-red tempera blood and, yes, even a little gore.

 Amicus co-founder and co-writer Milton Subotsky was reportedly a long-time fan of William Gaines's EC Comics source material, and the love for it is very apparent throughout the film. It doesn't have the cheeky sense of humour later Amicus films (or, indeed, later American adaptations of these and similar stories) would be known for, but it revels in its nastiness in a way that's undeniably fun.
 If I have to be completely honest I think I prefer some of the studio's other 'portmanteau' collections, but this is still a great anthology with some classic moments and a couple of really great stories. I do wonder just how much its impact on me has been dulled by exposure to this film's legacy... including many gorier interpretations of the same source material; This is one of the few Amicus films I didn't see as a kid, and I wonder whether I'd rank this higher if I'd seen it as a kid.

*: A fun localization detail: These catacombs are said to house the remains of the Carthusian (and other) monks martyred by Henry the Eight, which makes sense of this film's version of the Crypt Keeper. Also, the Crypt is located under the same cemetery (London's Highgate Cemetery) the camera pans through during the title sequence of From Beyond the Grave.

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).