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Visiting some catacombs, 5 persons are cut off from the rest of the tourgroup
&, by chance it seems, do enter a mysterious crypt, where they get locked
in & a mysterious man (Ralph Richardson), the Crypt Keeper, tells them
their respective fates:
- On Christmas Eve, Joanne (Joan Collins) kills
her husband Richard (Martin Boddey) & is then pretty much
preoccupied with making it look like an accident, so it's a good thing
she has heard on the radio that a homicidal maniac in a Santa costume
(Oliver MacGreevy) is roaming the neighbourhood & she has locked all
the doors & windows just in time. Unfortunately though, her innocent
little daughter (Chloe Franks) mistakes the maniac for the real Santa
...
- In utmost secrecy, Carl Maitland (Ian Hendry)
is leaving his wife (Susan Denny) & children (Paul
& Sharon Clere), to move to another town with his girlfriend Susan
(Angie Grant). His secrecy goes so far in fact that he hasn't even told
his family. When driving to the new town though, Carl & Susan have
an accident, & when Carl frees himself from the carwreck, he has to
realize all people run from him in terror. Finally he gets to Susan's
old appartment & she tells him they had the accident already 2 years
ago, & he died while she got blinded (which is why she doesn't run
away in terror) ... Then Carl wakes up, everything was just a dream,
& he & Susan are still in the car going to their new home ...
when they have an accident ...
- For some reason, rich son James Elliott
(Robin Phillips) hates his neighbour Grymsdyke (Peter Cushing), a poor
but kind scrap collector who just likes to have little kids & his
dogs around him. Legally though he can't get rid of his neighbour, so
James develops a plan in 4 stages to get rid of the old man: First he
destroys the posh gardens of his other neighbours & blames it on the
dogs so at one point the police just has to take away Grymsdyke's dogs.
On the second stage, James has Grymsdyke fired from his job in the
community, thirdly he tells the parents of the kids who visit Grymsdyke
that he's a you-know-what, & to top it all off, the next Valentine's
Day, James sends Grymsdyke tons of hatemail ...
After that, Grymsdyke seems to have vanished, & when James &
his father (David Markham) go look for him, they find him hanged ...
dead of course.
End of story, wouldn't Grymsdyke have been a closet spiritist, &
on the anniversary of his death, he rises from his grave to pull the
heart out of James' body to make the heartless slob a truly heartless
slob.
- Ralph Jason (Richard Greene) has lost all in a business
deal, & all in this context means everything, including his
personal belongings. Then though he & his wife Enid (Barbara Murray)
find an Oriental idol that grants them 3 wishes, they are desperate
enough to even try this, & enid wishes for lots of money ... Not
soon afterwards, Ralph has a fatal car acciodent, & Enid - thanks to
his insurance - gets lots of money. Realizing the idol at least
mioght work, she wishes Ralph back as he was exactly before the accident
... not knowing that he has died from a heartattack just befroe the car
crashed. So instead of a mutilated body from a car accident, she gets
her hubby back in the best of shaes, but still dead. Then she wishes him
back to life, & to live forever, & coming back he does, but in
terrible pain, since he has already been embalmed, & when Enid tries
to kill him out of mercy, it won'Twork since she has wished him to live
forever ...
- Ex-army major Rogers (Nigel Patrick) is hired
to run a home for the blind, & sees no reason why he should run it
any differently from his detail in the army - he has even brought his
bloodthirsty dog to emphasize on that point. The blinds though are
pretty miffed about being treated like soldiers, & have numerous
complaints about lack of proper heating or too bad & too little
food. But instead of listening to them, Rogers only threatens to release
his dog on them ...
When one of the blinds die however, they decide to fight back &
lure Rogers' dog away from him, to lock him into the cellar. Then they
lure Rogers into the cellar too & lock him into the next room, after
which they build an exclusive corridor between the 2 rooms, with the
walls spiked with razorblades & starve the dog until he is hungry
enough for a reunion with his master ...
The stories are told, & now, to little surprise for the audience, the
crypt turns out to be not an ordinary crypt at all but the entrance-hall to
hell ... Director Freddie Francis - while held in the highest
regards as a cameraman - was never known to be one of the most original
directors. However, when he was offered the right story that he could paint in
broad strokes, tell in bright colours & build on its macabre subtexts, he
was just the man for the job ... & in this respect, Tales from the Crypt,
an adaptation of several stories published by E.C.Comics, was a perfect movie
for Francis, & he didn't disappoint in telling some wicked, dark but also
ironic tales of terror. William M.Gaines' EC Comics were in the 50's deemed
as dangerous by some American censors & were thus banned before the end of
the 1950's ... which only contributed to their notoriety, but on the other hand
obscured the fact that these comics were actually well done, highly moralistic
shortstories that would invariably feature a macabre twist ... which was of
curse perfect stuff for Amicus, a studio that was always the most
successful (both artistically & commercially) when doing anthology- (or
omnibus-) movies.
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