Tales from the Crypt

Tales from the Crypt

Directed by: Freddie Francis

UK/USA, 1972

Horror Anthology, 92min

I’m still watching a lot of anthology flicks, and before the Crypt Keeper was a rotted corpse puppet on HBO (as played by John Kassir), he was Ralph Richardson. Legendary, majestic Ralph Richardson, or God from Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits if you love that flick as much as I do.

Deep down underneath the gothic atmosphere of the British equivalent of Jean Rollin’s beloved Pere Lachaise, Highgate Cemetery (where amongst others Douglas Adams and Karl Marx rest) the Crypt Keeper hosts a series of gruesome fates told to his blissfully unaware visitors. Five short stories and the interweaving wraparound with Richardson and leading cast are shared with us and I’ll be damned if this isn’t amongst the finest ever of Amicus anthology films. British anthology horror at its finest, and nobody did it better than Amicus.

Just like the successful TV series fifteen years later, this Amicus production takes its inspiration and stories from a bunch of Tales from the Crypt and Vault of Horror short form horror comics.  Five stories kick this racket, five stories right out of the pages of the EC comics Tales from the Crypt and Vault of Horror and it shows. These stories are everything that made those comics so damned controversial and amazing to start with. You know exactly what you are going to get with this fare, short and to the point horror with creepy atmosphere and ironic twists!

After walking astray in the vaults of the cemetery a bunch of people on the guided tour end up in an underground lair where the Crypt Keeper welcomes them. He starts to show them visions; visions that we pretty soon understand are their untimely demises. This is where the chills start to run down your spine.

The first story out sees Joan Collins once again reminding the audience why she was the hotness of the hot at the time this movie was made telling the tale of violent death and the way fate settles the score. And All Through The House starts with a murder and Collins panicking as she tries to rid all the evidence so that her young daughter doesn’t see what has happened… only to hear over the radio that an escaped maniac [Oliver MacGreevy] dressed as Santa Claus has escaped from the mental institute. Moments later she hears her daughter scream and guess who’s rapping at the window! Tense, fast and ferocious, what a splendid opener!

The second story Reflections of Death sees a scenario not to unlike H.P. Lovecraft’s The Outsider when Ian Hendry tries to find his way home after a fiery car crash. Short and to the point this is effective storytelling and it delivers a great climax!

The third story and undoubtedly the finest moment of this collection, is Poetic Justice starring Robin Phillips, David Markham and the majestic Peter Cushing. This tells the tale of predjudice and how two fancypants snobs go to extreme measures to rid themselves of the neighbor they presume is a dirty smelly old man. Cushing is  Arthur  Edward Grimsdyke, who still talks to his passed wife, is friendly to the neighbourhood kids and has a few dogs to many. Hence the neighbors, the Elliots presuming that his house is filthy and stinking of dog shit. Wnating to rid themselves of him as to up the value of their own property they scheme a diabolical plan to push the old man over the edge. A series of nasty valentines day cards are sent and realixing that the messages inside are not ones of love, Grimsdyke takes his own life… But one year later to the day, he arises from his grave to take his revenge. This entry is stunning, Cushing is fantastic and this is the epitome of EC horror. A masterpiece in it’s own right and comes with some fantastic moments of shock and awe.

W.W. Jacobs old classic The Monkeys Paw serves as inspiration and is even referenced in the fourth tale of horror, Wish You Where Here as Ralph Jason [Richard Greene] finds himself with a roublesome economy. Taking something of a last look at their many trophies purchased overseas on their many journeys abroad his wife Enid [Barbara Murray] notices an inscripture on one of their many statues… remember the wise words Carefull what you wish for? Well never did they ring more true than here as the economical problems become the least of their worries and a very shocking climax that for many years was cut from the movie startled the audience, has finally found it’s way back into the film. Blood and guts galore!

The final grim tale is all about the new boss in town. Nigel Patrick is Major William Rogers, a vile bastard with a sadistic streak and a passion for sicking his Alsatian dog on the inhabitants of the all male, blind ward he’s just become head of. Although George Carter [Patrick Magee] won’t have it, and after rallying his fellow inmates, the insane, or rather the blind, take over the asylum and Major Rogers get’s to taste his own medicine. If you have a phobia for razorblades, they you’ll probably faint when you see the razorblade infested walls of the tight corridors the callous Major is forced to walk.

With an all star cast, yes I think we can call it an all star cast as it houses many great British actors and actresses, Tales from the Crypt is something of a who’s who of UK low budget horror fare. Upon it’s release, Tales from the Crypt became one of the most successful films of the year in the US. Hence leading Amicus to continu with the great string of anthology anthology horrors that beaome something of a signature style of Amicus.  Another few years later a remake was planned by George A. Romero and Stephen King. Luckily they decided against it and instead came up with Creepshow another example of anthology movies that pay homage to both Amicus and the EC horror comic universe. 

Body Bags

Body Bags

Directed by: John Carpenter & Tobe Hooper

USA, 1993

Horror/Sci-Fi

So while we are on about portmanteau films (see previous post on Pánico), why not dive into a fun, fearsome but somewhat underrated little gem that might have slipped away due to the simple fact that it was released as a TV movie. Never the less, I recall seeing Body Bags on VHS and actually experiencing that “Oh shit a new John Carpenter flick” giddiness, and already liking this little chunk of fun already then. Initially a pilot with the intention of branching off into it’s own anthology series much like Tales from the Darkside or more recent Masters of Horror, Body Bags hits the nail right on, or as one may say, through the head.

Just like Tales from the Crypt, Body Bags sees a morbidly ironic and eerie host, guide us through the episodes, all three of them. Carpenter himself takes the role of the Coroner in the Morgue (makeup effects by Rick Baker!) hosting us through the wraparounds. He does it perfectly and despite being more of a package than a story, the segments do have their own narrative and classical corny death and horror themed jokes are delivered en masse.

The first short is Carpenter’s The Gas Station, which tells a story of tense fear, as there is a killer on the loose. Anne [Alex Datcher] spends her first night as night attendant at gas station and is put through a series of encounters with guests and nightwalkers, of which one might just be the killer. Robert Carradine, Wes Craven, David Naughton and George ‘Buck’ Flower are found amongst the cast, which is one of the really cool things about Body Bags; there are so many damned cool actors in this movie that it should be watched just for that fact alone. Set in “Haddonfield”, giving a lovely tie in to that other classic string of serial killer flicks set in Haddonfield, The Gas Station is classic horror. A by the book, tension twister that builds during the course of the 30 minute run before landing in the grim ending.

The second tale is another Carpenter directed episode. This one all about male vanity, and Stacey Keach giving a great performance as the balding Richard Coberts struggling and doing just about anything to hang onto his manliness in Hair… even If it means contacting the Roswell Hair Growth Foundation run by the aptly named Dr. Lock [David Warner]. This entry is fun, quirky and is actually a smart and cunning Sci-Fi entry! It also has a hilarious montage of Keach admiring fluffy various hairdos and Greg Nicotero walking by with his then trademark lion mane of fluff, that’s comedy. But despite being fun and quirky, this is horror and the dark reveal will leave a sinister smirk on your face at the climax. One could say that this entry is the classic “careful what you wish” for scenario.

The final entry sees Tobe Hooper step up to the directors’ chair for the grimmest episode of the three, Eye. Eye sees Mark Hamill as Brent Matthews, enjoying a major league baseball career and living he life of his dreams. His wife Cathy [Twiggy] is expecting their first child and even though everything seems hunky dory, Brent’s life is about to change forever… No, it’s not the unborn child that changes his life; it’s the eye he has transplanted after loosing his in a serious car accident. This is almost a phantom hand syndrome… but Brent is seeing stuff instead… such as a zombie version of his wife buried in the back yard! He takes to scripture and seeks comfort in the lord, but to no success. Brent’s personality changes completely from nice guy to ominous creep. Where the previous two entries are kind of fun and have a certain light heartedness about them, Tobe Hooper brings it all to the game here. It’s fiendish, violent, has a completely unexpected moment of nudity and Hamill giving a performance that would be right at home in the Sawyer family.

From the Albertus MT font of the opening credits to the low key synthesizer music that plays out over the final scene and, you know what you are going to get. And you are right, you get just what you want, John Carpenter creep-o-rama, with a dash of Hooper cruelty… all served up with a delightful dark comedic grimness. Not forgetting the magnificent list of cameos and genre and music personalities Wes Craven, Roger Corman, Sam Raimi, Debbie Harry, Sheena Easton, John Agar, Charles Napier, and others. It’s a fascinating cast, the stories are great, the shock value of both violence and nudity is high, and one only dares to imagine how great a full serial run could have been.

Pánico

Pánico

Directed by: Julián Soler

Horror, 1966

85min, Mexico

There’s something about anthology films that appeal to me on some sort of primal level. I love them, and I can’t get enough of them. Perhaps it’s the genetic heritage of Amicus movies, or the short form of Roald Dahl TV series The Tales of the Unexpected and The Twilight Zone re-runs, or perhaps George A Romero’s Creepshow, which was amongst the very first VHS tapes I bought in the eighties or the many horror anthology books I received throughout my childhood… Whatever it may be, there’s still something about the short brief story arcs all collected into one movie that I like, which obviously is great now when the anthology film has made something of a comeback with stuff like ABC’s of Death, V/H/S etc., etc.…  Also known as the Portmanteau movie, basically as the word Portmanteau refers to a word being made up of two other words, i.e. a movie made up of other shorter movies, one can trace the portmanteau film as far back as the 1919’s Germany where director Richard Oswald (born Richard W Ornstein) - who later fled the Nazis and ended up in the States, after a fantastic career in Fantasy and horror filmmaking – sorry, back to Oswald, yeah, back in 1919, when Oswald released Unhemliche Gesichten (Erie Tales), starring amongst others Conrad Veidt and Anita Berber and shot by Karl Hoffman, Fritz Lang’s patron saint of the cinematography. Eerie Tales tells five short stories, from the likes of Robert L Stephenson and Edgar Allan Poe, as told by the guests of the wraparound; the devil a prostitute and the death share tall tales with each other in a closed bookshop.

As a sub niche, the Anthology film has always been around; it’s always been something of a trustworthy source for quick fix of irony, the macabre and dark twisted horror. It’s during the 1960’s and early 70’s that the niche gained real renaissance as a platform for collections of cheap thrills and nasty scares. Not just retrained to the film industries of the US or England - where Amicus became masters of the portmanteau film, but even globally with fine entries such as Italy’s Mario Bava and his Il tre volti della paura (Black Sabbath) 1963, Japan’s Masaki Kobayashi and the two hour epic Kwaidan 1964, the French/Italian Fellini/Malle/Vadim sexy arty-horror vehicle Histories Extraordinaires (Spirits of the Dead) 1968, I’d even go as far as calling Jean Rollin’s debut feature Le Viol du Vampire (The Rape of the Vampire) 1968 something of an anthology film as it actually consists of two initially separate films.

Obviously Mexican filmmakers where getting in on the trend too, and why shouldn’t they, as directors like Ramón Obón, Chano Urueta, and Julián Soler tied together short form stories into some great anthology flicks. One such film being Pánico!

Director Julián Soler teamed up with Ramón Obón, although not the legendary Ramón Obón who wrote Fernando Mendez’s El Vampiro (The Vampire) 1957, Misterios de ultratumba (The Black Pit of Dr. M) or El grit de la muerte (The Living Coffin) both 1959, but his son, also named Ramón Obón, on his second feature based on his screenwriting.

Pánico tells three tales in chapters titled: Panic, Solitude, Anguish and it does this with all the traits of the portmanteau film: dark, macabre, ironic with EC horror twists waiting at the finale.

The titular episode Panic starts with the sound of a screaming baby and an empty crib before Maria [Ana Martín] finds herself running through the woods, chased by a screaming witch [Ofelia Guilmáin] Suddenly she’s in a city environment, amongst parked cars, confronted by a band of rough men. She’s dragged to the ground and raped before running through the woods again, first chased by the men, then the witch. Maria carries a doll with a fractured face, she walks with the doll into a small pond of blood, and then the chase is on again up to the point where the narrative is interrupted and the twist is explained. Back in 1966 I’m pretty sure that this was major intense stuff, as the entire fifteen minutes of Panic see’s Ana Maria running through the woods, screaming raving bloody murder. It’s immensely metaphorical and filled with symbolism that leads to that last moment twist.

Solitude starts with two men praying over a freshly dug grave. As they travel the backwater river through the swamp, the backstory comes to haunts them… Both men where involved with the woman they just buried. She, [Susana Salvat] was married to Abel [José Gàlvez] but was having an affair with Carlos [Joaquín Cordero who also starred in Ramón Obón Snr’s anthology horror Cien gritos de terror (100 Cries of Terror) and who also held the titular role in Miguel Morayta’s seminal work Doctor Satán 1966] Their boat crashes on the rapids and they are forced to makeshift camp in the dark damp swamp. Trapped in the jungle their frustrations, ill conscious and guilt surface to keep them company.

The final tale Anguish, clearly based on Edgar Allen Poe’s The Premature Burial, holds something of a dark comedic tone. Scientist Tiberius [Aldo Monti, who starred as Dracula in René Cardona’s Santo en El Tesoro de Drácula (Santo and Dracula’s Treasure) 1969, and Miguel M. Delgado’s Santo y Blue Demon vs Drácula y el Hombre Lobo (Santo and Blue Demon versus Dracula and the Wolf man) 1973) discovers a spanking new and highly powerful sedative that can be used in surgeries… But before he can celebrate, his damned cat accidentally knocks over the potion, killing them both on the spot… or at least so it seems. In fact Tiberius is alive inside his body even if all vital signs are missing. His wife Melody [Alma Delia Fuentes] cries at his bed as the doctors declare him dead and set about planning his funeral. Tiberius screams inside his head, that he’s alive and will be well in the morning, his deathlike appearance merely the effect of his magnificent drug! The only thing that Tiberius can control are his eyelids which gives a couple of darkly comedic moments as doctors, undertakers and family try to close his eyelids only to see them pop open again. Just like the previous entries into this wonderful anthology, Anguish ends with a shocking ironic twist.

Pánico is a solid anthology flick with plenty of atmosphere and a lot of strong emotions going on. After all this is horror, and horror deals with topics of guilt, redemption, sex and death and it works just as well in short form as it does in long form!

The ABC's of Death

The ABC’s of Death

Directed by: Nacho Vigalondo, Adrian Garcia Bogliano, Ernesto Diaz Espinoza, Marcel Sarmiento, Angela Bettis, Noboru Iguchi, Andrew Traucki, Thomas Malling, Jorge Michel Grau, Yûdai Yamaguchi, Anders Morgenthaler, Timo Tjahjanto, Ti West, Banjong Pisanthanakun, Bruno Forzani, Héléne Cattet, Simon Rumley, Adam Wingard, Simon Barrett, Srdjan Spasojevic, Jake West, Lee Hardcastle, Ben Wheatley, Kaare Andrews, Jon Schnepp, Xavier Gens, Jason Eisener, Yoshihiro Nishimura.

USA/New Zealand, 2012

Horror, 123 min

The rules where simple, maximum of four minutes, must start and end on a red card, must be based on the designated letter given, and must contain DEATH.

The first time I sat down to watch The ABC’s of Death I was concerned that it was going to fall flat on it’s face, as I was still feeling disappointed with a couple of contemporary anthology films which have been hyped previous to The ABC’s of Death being unleashed. I was also immensely curious to see if twenty-six short films could be compiled into one anthology and if it would work at all. Would the films be too short to tell their story, would it be too eclectic, would twenty six shorts in a row be endurable, would they manage to pull it off or would it fall flat on it’s face like a failed experiment?

After a beautiful title sequence, which form-wise returns in-between films with title and filmmaker credits, the ball is set in motion. Five minutes in and I’m already cringing, a hand has been sliced from the soft piece of skin between index and ring finger so that it hangs from the wrist by a tiny piece of flesh, a frying pan with boiling oil has been thrown into the face of the knifed man by his angered wife. He screams in agony and she sits down to confess that she’s been poisoning him slowly for the last year… External sounds indicate a panic in the streets. The wife apologizes and says that his death was supposed to be much better, but there’s no time to waste now, hence the fast assaults. She lies down next to the man as he pulls his last breath and the frame fades to intense red. The first letter of twenty-six is completed, A is for Apocalypse by Nacho Vigalondo.

With it’s down beat, slow moody narrative, it set’s the tone of he film, and introduces the short form storytelling of the cavalcade about to occupy two hours of your time, and it’s the complete opposite of the surreal visual orgy that Yoshihiro Nishimura’s sushi, maggots, nakedness and gore drenched Z is for Zetsumetsu (Extinction) slams into the end of the parade of depravity.

Short form cinema can be more difficult than feature films, as you need to work extremely efficient to set character, tone, plot and story. It’s no easy task, and a few – only a few, the majority kick ass in their own peculiar ways – a few of the films in The ABC’s of Death unfortunately don’t really manage to make it all the way, like Noburo Iguchi’s F is for Fart, Andrew Traucki’s minimalistic G is for Gravity, or the complete insult that is Ti West’s piece M is for Miscarriage. Damn, is he even trying at all these days?

Although the most of these short form films are top notch. A couple of entries don’t even need to check the boxes or play by the rules, as they are quick mindfucks such as Ernesto Díaz Espinoza’s chapter C is for Cycle or arty set pieces like Bruno Forzani & Hélène Cattet (of Amer) O is for Orgasm. A couple go for the comedic approach such as Thomas Cappelen Malling’s H is for Hydro-Electric Diffusion, Banjong Pisanthanakun’s N is for Nuptials and Angela Bettis - sadly enough only one of the two female directors in the compilation WTF? - E is for Exterminate, which is creepy fun until the climax turns the fun into scream. Two films take an interesting Meta approach, like Lee Wingard’s Q is for Quack and Jon Schnepp’s W is for WTF. Some take alternative approaches, through animation as Anders Morgenthaler’s hilarious K is for Klutz about a woman and her obsessive turd or Lee Hardcastle’s splendid T is for Toilet, the winning contribution of 171 candidates competing for the letter T.

Some directors have gone for a disturbingly dark and gloomy approach – perhaps amplified by the lighter ones around them – which only go for the gut punch offering no relief or closing twist as Jorge Michel Grau does with I is for Ingrown. Others are cunning, and build up to a disturbing rush of insight as Jason Eisner’s Y is for Youngbuck.

Then there’s the real pearl's of the cake, the entries that hit the nail right on the head and bring some truly fantastic stuff, such as my favourite segments; Marcel Sarmiento's D is for Dogfight, Timo Tjahjanto’s L is for Libido, Hardcastle’s T is for Toilet, Srdjan Spacojevic’s R is for Removed and Xavier Genz X is for XXL.

What makes these pieces stand out in my eyes is that D is for Dogfight nails it, brings a great twist, rush of insight and manages to get emotions in there too all in the few minutes available. L is for Libido manages to raise curiosity, build tension, at first make us cheer on the perversity, only to slap us in the face and repulse us, before thumping down a shocking finale. R is for Removed – primarily because it shows that Spacojevic is so much more than the shock monger behind A Serbian Film and gives teasing glimpses into a world that is beyond our comprehension. Remember when Fruit Chan’s Dumplings also was a full feature; well I want a full feature with Spacojevic’s Removed. He’s fucking close to being more Cronenberg than Cronenberg ever was here! X is for XXL is a haunting and innovative comment on the fixation of female ideals, and damn does it’s climax sting. I interviewed Lee Hardcastle at the FFF in Lund last year and he’s a fucking hilarious guy. T is for Toilet is the antichrist version of Nick Park Wallace and Gromit movies - sinister, brilliant, and possibly one of the most violent claymations ever made, and yes, Hardcastle snuffs the kid – with a bog cistern lid.

As a whole, The ABC’s of Death is a pretty damned cool mix, the majority of the films hit the mark, the variation in styles keeps it crisp, the variations of death keep it interesting, the variations in approach keep it from being repetitive, which many other anthology films completely fail at. With a few exceptions, the short form approach is a welcome one and I really enjoyed the ride it took me on.

The ABC’s of Death plays like a mix-tape of mayhem. If you are old enough, you know what I’m talking about, those tapes handed to you by a girlfriend or a friend. You know that there’s going to be tracks you love, tracks that you like, tracks that you won’t like at first but will grow on you, and then those tracks that make you go why the hell is that in there. But that’s the way I like it, unpredictable, intriguing and original. You will be going back to several of the shorts to watch them again because they will stick to you like lint to a scab.

The ABC’s of Death is a smorgasbord of contemporary horror. Mixing everything with everyone who’s anyone, all nations under mayhem and death. If you don’t watch The ABC’s of Death then you can’t call yourself a fan of horror ever again. This IS one of the best anthology films since Romero’s Creepshow and I can hardly wait to go back in to it and pick out those gems all over again.

The ABC’s of Death will be released on DVD in Sweden by NjutaFilms later this year.