TALES FROM THE CRYPT (1972)

All right! Another one of those Amicus anthology pictures. This one is all based on stories from horror comics in the 1950s (geeky note: only two of the stories are from Tales From the Crypt! The others are from The Haunt of Fear and The Vault of Horror, but they all came out at the same time by the same people, so it’s kind of like splitting hairs.). I’ve got a few of the reprints of the comics, and they’re all GREAT. This movie isn’t as much fun as the comics themselves, mostly because just about everyone’s very British and very stiff-upper-lipped, and the artwork in the comics is a lot more ghoulish but it’s still pretty fun on its own. There’s a Christmas story about a deranged madman dressed like Santa. There’s one about a guy who has a car wreck with his mistress and things only get worse. One’s about a poor, kindly old guy (Peter Cushing!) who entertains the neighborhood kids and gets pushed into killing himself (this one is really sad!!!). One is about a monkey’s paw that grants wishes, but the wishes all turn out in the worst way possible. And the last one is about a horrible old jerk who takes over a home for the blind and treats everyone like crap. In the end, they get their revenge, and it makes me squirm just to think about it. This is one of the best of these anthology movies, but if you really want something fun, check out the comics. They’re AMAZING!