Tales from the Crypt (film)/Recap

Tales fron the Crypt Synopsis (From Wikipedia, with additions):
Framing Story (Opening) - Five strangers go with a tourist group to view old catacombs. Separated from the main group, they find themselves in a room with the mysterious Crypt Keeper, who details how each of the strangers will die.

...And All Through the House (The Vault of Horror #35) - After Joanne Clayton (Joan Collins) kills her husband on Christmas Eve, she prepares to hide his body but hears a radio announcement stating that a homicidal maniac (Oliver MacGreevy) is on the loose. She sees the maniac outside her house but can't call the police because of her husband's body.

Reflection of Death (Tales from the Crypt #23) - Carl Maitland (Ian Hendry) abandons his family to be with Susan Blake (Angela Grant). After they drive off together, they are involved in a car accident. He wakes up in the wrecked car and attempts to hitchhike home, but no one will stop for him. Arriving at his house, he sees his wife (Susan Denny) with another man. He knocks on the door, but she screams and slams the door. He staggers to his lover's house and is received, but she reveals she was blinded in the same car crash that killed her lover...

Poetic Justice (The Haunt of Fear #12, March-April 1952) - Edward Elliott (David Markham) and his son James (Robin Phillips) are a snobbish pair who resent their neighbor, retired garbage man Arthur Grimsdyke (Peter Cushing) who owns a number of animals and entertains children in his house. To get rid of what they see as a blight on the neighborhood, they push Grimsdyke into a frenzy by conducting a smear campaign against him, first resulting in the removal of his beloved dogs (while one of them came back to him), and later exploiting parents' paranoiac fears about child molestation. Grimsdyke, in despair, eventually hangs himself, but one year later...

Wish You Were Here (The Haunt of Fear #22, November-December 1953) - a variation on W. W. Jacobs' famed short story "The Monkey's Paw." Ruthless businessman Ralph Jason (Richard Greene) is close to financial ruin. His wife Enid (Barbara Murray) discovers a Chinese figurine and wishes for a fortune. Ralph is killed on the way to his lawyer's office, the lawyer then advising Enid she will inherit a fortune from her deceased husband's life insurance plan. She uses her second wish to bring him back to the way he was just before the accident but learns that his death was due to a heart attack (caused by fright when he sees the figure of 'death' following him on a motorcycle).

Blind Alleys (Tales from the Crypt #46, February-March 1955) - Major William Rogers (Nigel Patrick), the new director of a home for the blind, makes drastic financial cuts, reducing heat and rationing food for the residents, while he lives in luxury with Shane, his Belgian Malinois. When he ignores complaints and a man dies due to the cold, the blind residents, led by George Carter (Patrick Magee) exact revenge.

Framing Story (Ending) - The confused and baffled strangers ask why they were shown these visions, and the Crypt Keeper reveals that he wasn't warning them of future events, but explaining why they had been sent to Hell.

Three of these stories ("All Through the House", "Blind Alleys" aka "Revenge is the Nuts", and "Wish You Were Here") were later adapted into episodes of the Tales from the Crypt television series.

The Vault of Horror Synopsis (From Wikipedia):
Framing Story (Opening) - Five strangers board a descending lift, one by one, in a modern office block in London. They reach the basement, though none of them have pressed for that destination. There they find a large, elaborately furnished room which appears to be a gentlemen’s club. The lift door has closed and there are no buttons to bring it back, nor any other exit. Resigned to waiting for help, they settle down with drinks and talk. The conversation turns to dreams, and each man tells of a recurring nightmare.

Midnight Mess (Tales from the Crypt #35) – Harold (although credited as Rodgers) (Daniel Massey) tracks his sister Donna (Anna Massey-- his real sister!) to a strange village and kills her to claim her inheritance. After settling down for a post-murder meal at the local restaurant, he discovers the town is home to a nest of vampires: his sister is not as dead as he thinks, and he becomes the dish of the night when his jugular vein is tapped out as a beverage dispenser.

The Neat Job (Shock SuspenStories #1) – The obsessively neat Arthur Critchit (Terry-Thomas) marries Eleanor (Glynis Johns), a young trophy wife who is not quite the domestic goddess he hoped for. His constant nagging about the mess she makes eventually drives her mad. She hits him over the head with a hammer then cuts him up, storing the pieces in neatly labeled jars – including his “odds and ends.”

This Trick’ll Kill You (Tales from the Crypt #33) – Sebastian (Curt Jurgens) is a magician on a working holiday in India, where he and his wife are searching for new tricks. Nothing impresses until he sees a girl charming a rope out of a basket with a flute. Unable to work out how the trick is done, he persuades her to come to his hotel room, where he and his wife (Dawn Addams) murder her and steal the enchanted rope. Sebastian plays the flute, and the rope rises; his wife climbs it, only to disappear with a scream. An ominous patch of blood appears on the ceiling, and the rope coils round Sebastian's neck and hangs him. Their victim reappears alive in the bazaar.

Bargain in Death (Tales from the Crypt #28) – Maitland (Michael Craig) is buried alive as part of an insurance scam concocted with his friend Alex (Edward Judd). Alex double-crosses Maitland, leaving him to suffocate. Two trainee doctors (Robin Nedwell and Geoffrey Davies) bribe a gravedigger (Arthur Mullard) to dig up a corpse to help with their studies. When Maitland’s coffin is opened, he jumps up gasping for air, causing the doctors to run out into the middle of the road in front of Alex’s car, which crashes. The gravedigger kills Maitland and when trying to close the sale of the corpse apologizes to the doctors for the damage to the head.

Drawn and Quartered (Tales from the Crypt #26) – Moore (Tom Baker) is an impoverished painter living on Haiti. When he learns that his work has been sold for high prices by dealers and critics who told him that it was worthless, he goes to a voodoo priest and his painting hand is given voodoo power; whatever he paints or draws can be harmed by damaging its image. Returning to London, Moore paints portraits of the three men who cheated him, and mutilates them to exact his revenge. However, he has previously painted his own self-portrait, and he must protect it to prevent himself being harmed.

Framing Story (Ending) - When the story of the final dream is told, the five ponder the meaning of their nightmares. The lift door opens, and they find themselves looking out onto a graveyard. They walk out and disappear one by one. The last (Jurgens) explains that they are damned souls doomed to tell the story of their evil deeds for all eternity.


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