It's no secret that I've been a fan of E.C. Comics for over thirty years. It was a no brainer for me to watch this movie as a kid and as an adult I still walk away from it with mixed emotions.
This was an anthology horror movie from Amicus, a British studio that is known for having made several cheap adaptations of short stories into horror movie anthology films (From Beyond the Grave, Asylum, and The House that Dripped Blood). Let's take a deeper dive.
The frame story of the film as five people who take a tour in an ancient abbey, find themselves lost, and wander into a crypt. They meet the monk-like Cryptkeeper (played with no personality by Ralph Richardson). The Cryptkeeper can see into the soul of each person and can tell how they will die. We proceed into the individual stories of each character:
"And All Through the House" (from Vault of Horror #35). A housewife played by Joan Collins murders her husband on Christmas Eve while their daughter is asleep. She works on disposing the body when she hears on the radio that there is a homicidal maniac dressed as Santa Claus on the loose. She is trapped, unable to call the cops while trying to find out how to deal with the body, and to make sure her daughter doesn't see anything. The twist ending to this story is as ironic as it is natural. This story is one of the best psychological suspense stories ever written. The film more or less plays out the way it should although the trendy decor in the house reminds us how long ago the 70s were.
"Reflections in Death" (from Tales from the Crypt #23). A man steps out on his wife and kids and gets into a car wreck with his mistress. We follow him in first person perspective as he walks away from the crash. The circumstances that bring him to car crash is different from the comics but the rest is rendered nicely. This is done really well thanks to the poor lighting which makes our view of everything is as bad as the protagonist's. There's a great reveal at the end.
"Poetic Justice" (from The Haunt of Fear #12). To me this is the best segment. Peter Cushing plays Arthur Grimsdyke, a lonely aging widower, who is the local garbage man. The story is told through the perspective of his snooty neighbor who conspires with his dad to get Grimsdyke to sell his house and leave town. They stoop to the point of alienating him from the town, make him lose all his pets, and makes it appear as if the entire town sends him cruel and demeaning Valentine cards. Grimsdyke commits suicide but returns to mete out some gruesome justice, gifting the father with a Valentine's Day gift: his son's heart. Cushing plays a sympathetic character who you genuinely feel for, and the makeup and prosthetics for the reanimated corpse are excellent.
"Wish You Were Here" (from Haunt of Fear #23). An embezzler and his wife are in dire financial straights and realize that one of their curios grants wishes. What happens next plays out much like "The Monkey's Paw" but more gruesome. This is probably my least favorite story in the bunch but it's still pretty good.
"Blind Alleys" (from Tales from the Crypt #46). A sadistic director of a home for the blind neglects the people in his charge and makes them suffer while living in comfort and keeping his dog well fed. The residents take matters into the own hands and turn the place into a death trap for the director in which they pit him against his starving dog. This conte cruel suggests brutal violence while not showing it and makes it an effective story.
The selections are excellent; I'm not disputing that. I have a problem with the fact that this movie has no sense of humor and the Cryptkeeper is dull as soggy cardboard. This movie was pretty well received and helped to bring Tales from the Crypt back to public consciousness, but I am disappointed because the playful mood created by William Gaines and Al Feldstein is completely missing. The Cryptkeeper is meant to terrify you and make you laugh, not to show you your sins. On this end, it was a missed opportunity, but I'm happy with how the individual stories turned out. I also have the HBO series to compare this with, which might not be fair. B+
Written by Nick Montelongo
This was an anthology horror movie from Amicus, a British studio that is known for having made several cheap adaptations of short stories into horror movie anthology films (From Beyond the Grave, Asylum, and The House that Dripped Blood). Let's take a deeper dive.
The frame story of the film as five people who take a tour in an ancient abbey, find themselves lost, and wander into a crypt. They meet the monk-like Cryptkeeper (played with no personality by Ralph Richardson). The Cryptkeeper can see into the soul of each person and can tell how they will die. We proceed into the individual stories of each character:"And All Through the House" (from Vault of Horror #35). A housewife played by Joan Collins murders her husband on Christmas Eve while their daughter is asleep. She works on disposing the body when she hears on the radio that there is a homicidal maniac dressed as Santa Claus on the loose. She is trapped, unable to call the cops while trying to find out how to deal with the body, and to make sure her daughter doesn't see anything. The twist ending to this story is as ironic as it is natural. This story is one of the best psychological suspense stories ever written. The film more or less plays out the way it should although the trendy decor in the house reminds us how long ago the 70s were.
"Reflections in Death" (from Tales from the Crypt #23). A man steps out on his wife and kids and gets into a car wreck with his mistress. We follow him in first person perspective as he walks away from the crash. The circumstances that bring him to car crash is different from the comics but the rest is rendered nicely. This is done really well thanks to the poor lighting which makes our view of everything is as bad as the protagonist's. There's a great reveal at the end.
"Poetic Justice" (from The Haunt of Fear #12). To me this is the best segment. Peter Cushing plays Arthur Grimsdyke, a lonely aging widower, who is the local garbage man. The story is told through the perspective of his snooty neighbor who conspires with his dad to get Grimsdyke to sell his house and leave town. They stoop to the point of alienating him from the town, make him lose all his pets, and makes it appear as if the entire town sends him cruel and demeaning Valentine cards. Grimsdyke commits suicide but returns to mete out some gruesome justice, gifting the father with a Valentine's Day gift: his son's heart. Cushing plays a sympathetic character who you genuinely feel for, and the makeup and prosthetics for the reanimated corpse are excellent.
"Wish You Were Here" (from Haunt of Fear #23). An embezzler and his wife are in dire financial straights and realize that one of their curios grants wishes. What happens next plays out much like "The Monkey's Paw" but more gruesome. This is probably my least favorite story in the bunch but it's still pretty good.
"Blind Alleys" (from Tales from the Crypt #46). A sadistic director of a home for the blind neglects the people in his charge and makes them suffer while living in comfort and keeping his dog well fed. The residents take matters into the own hands and turn the place into a death trap for the director in which they pit him against his starving dog. This conte cruel suggests brutal violence while not showing it and makes it an effective story.
The selections are excellent; I'm not disputing that. I have a problem with the fact that this movie has no sense of humor and the Cryptkeeper is dull as soggy cardboard. This movie was pretty well received and helped to bring Tales from the Crypt back to public consciousness, but I am disappointed because the playful mood created by William Gaines and Al Feldstein is completely missing. The Cryptkeeper is meant to terrify you and make you laugh, not to show you your sins. On this end, it was a missed opportunity, but I'm happy with how the individual stories turned out. I also have the HBO series to compare this with, which might not be fair. B+
Written by Nick Montelongo
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