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!

THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD (1971)

This kind of movie is great – it’s like a bunch of little stories all linked together. This one studio in England, Amicus Pictures, made a bunch of them, and this is probably the best one. The linking element is that everyone who’s lived in this particular house has had something horrible happen to them. (The weird thing, though, is that even though there’s been all these owners, all the stories look like they take place during the same week in 1971!) There’s witchcraft and voodoo dolls, a writer’s horror story coming to life, a creepy wax museum, and a cursed vampire cape. There’s Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Ingrid Pitt and Jon Pertwee (who played the fourth Doctor in DOCTOR WHO!). It’s all pretty much tongue-in-cheek and everybody seems to be having a lot of fun. You will too if you watch it!