THE VAULT OF HORROR (1973)

I first became acquainted with the classic EC horror comics of the 1950s in the mid-1960s when I was about 10. EC (Entertaining Comics) was driven out of business by censorship efforts (too gory, too sexy) in 1956, the year I was born, but DC Comics ran tamer horror stories in comics like House of Mystery, and I grew up reading magazines like Creepy and Eerie with very EC-like stories. By 1965, EC stories were being reprinted in black & white mass market paperbacks and I devoured them. A few years later, the original stories were being republished regularly, and by 1989, HBO's series Tales from the Crypt, which adapted EC stories, started a seven season run, helping to ensure EC’s place in popular culture. In the early 1970s, the British studio Amicus started releasing anthology films featuring 4 or 5 dramatized horror stories. This one is based on stories from the original EC comics (though none of the stories were published in the comic called Vault of Horror). If you've read even a couple of the original comics, you know what to expect: a melodramatic conflict is set up, usually between lovers or partners or friends, someone betrays someone else, and a moralistic payback happens, usually involving the supernatural, some dark humor, and a fair amount of gore.

Here, five strangers share an elevator in a modern London building. They wind up in a sub-basement with no way to go back up. A dining table is set up and the men begin telling stories involving recent vivid and unpleasant dreams. In the first story, Daniel Massey hunts down and kills his sister (real-life sibling Anna Massey, both children of Raymond Massey) for her inheritance, only to realize he's trapped after dark in a village of vampires. [I won’t give away spoilers for most of these, though only someone with no knowledge of spooky storytelling won't see the endings long before they arrive, but the last shot here is memorable—a vampire holds someone upside down and plunges a spigot in his neck so all can feast on his blood.] Next up, Terry-Thomas, a stodgy man set in his ways, marries Glynis Johns who proceeds to accidentally mess up his meticulously organized household until she does some organizing of her own. The third story features Curt Jurgens and Dawn Addams as magicians who try to figure out an Indian magic rope trick they see performed in the street, ultimately murdering the girl magician and stealing her rope which they assume is truly enchanted. Disappointment follows. Next, Michael Craig tells of his plan to pull off an insurance scam by faking his death, with the help of a friend who betrays him, leading to a buried alive situation. Finally, Tom Baker is a Gauginish painter living in the South Seas who discovers that his agents and a museum director are cheating him out of money back home; he turns to voodoo to get revenge. As the viewer will have figured out very early on, the five men are all dead and in an afterlife anteroom. This is no better or worse than any other anthology film of the era. Some actors clearly think they’re slumming (the Massey siblings, Curt Jurgens) and some play along gamely (Terry-Thomas, Tom Baker). Glynis Johns, pictured above, who just turned 100, does quite well considering her characterization is nonexistent. As I noted, there are very few surprises in store, though story #2 has a surprisingly gory, if played for laughs, climax. Production values are cheap, and the whole thing has the air of something done in a hurry. Still, it's October so go ahead and watch. [YouTube; also on Blu-ray]