The Vault of Horror ** (1973, Terry-Thomas, Tom Baker, Daniel Massey, Anna Massey, Curt Jurgens, Dawn Addams, Glynis Johns, Denholm Elliott, Michael Craig) – Classic Movie Review 3116

Director Roy Ward Baker’s 1973 chiller brings five more horror tales of the unexpected that make up Amicus’s sixth portmanteau movie. A follow-up to 1972’s Tales from the Crypt, it is written by Amicus producer Milton Subotsky and based on stories by Al Feldstein and William M Gaines that appeared in the banned EC comics of the Fifties.

In segment 1 Midnight Mess, Daniel Massey plays Rogers who kills his sister Donna (played by his real-life sibling Anna Massey) and ends up dining with the undead.

In segment 2 The Neat Job, Terry-Thomas is Critchit, an obsessively fussy man dealt with by Eleanor (Glynis Johns) in an extremely neat fashion.

In segment 3 This Trick’ll Kill You, Curt Jurgens’s Sebastian and Dawn Addams’s Inez deviously acquire a rope trick that goes wrong.

In segment 4 Bargain in Death, Michael Craig’s Maitland fakes his own death a little too well.

And in segment 5 Drawn and Quartered, Tom Baker plays Moore, the voodoo-practising artist undone by black magic.

The framing story in which five men are trapped in the basement of an office building looks contrived and tacked on and makes little narrative sense, but then little of the movie does. However, there’s plenty to relish in the bizarre stories, the spirited performances of the fine cast, the good-looking production and its camp moments of black humour that easily save it from being a waste of the considerable talents involved.

Also in the cast are Edward Judd, Denholm Elliott, Robin Nedwell, Geoffrey Davies, Terence Alexander, Ishaq Bux, Sylvia Marriott, John Forbes-Robertson, Arthur Mullard as the gravedigger, Tony Hazell, Mike Pratt, Jasmina Hilton, Marianne Stone, John Witty, Eric Chitty, Geraldine Hart, Daniel Jones, Tommy Godfrey, Elsa Smith, Tony Wall, Genine Graham, Jerold Wells and Maurice Kaufmann.

Dr Terror’s House of Horrors (1965), Tales from the Crypt (1972), The Vault of Horror (1973) Tales That Witness Madness (1973) and From Beyond the Grave (1974) are among Amicus’s portmanteau films. Director Freddie Francis’s 1967 Torture Garden, The House That Dripped Blood (1971) and Asylum (1972) are the three Amicus portmanteau films written by Robert Bloch and based on his own stories.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3116

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com