Tales from the Crypt (film)



In 1972, five tales from EC Comics were adapted into the anthology film Tales from the Crypt by the British Amicus Productions. In spite of the name, only two of the stories came from the actual Tales from the Crypt comic, with the others coming from The Haunt of Fear and The Vault of Horror.

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.

In 1973, Tales from the Crypt was followed up with a sequel The Vault of Horror. As before it features five different stories, taken from various EC works. Ironically, not a single one actually came from the Vault of Horror series.

Currently, only the Bowdlerized PG version of The Vault of Horror is available on DVD.

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.

Tropes used in These Films:
"Carter: "With all due respect, sir, we are not soldiers. Blind people are not like people with sight. We have lost one sense but the loss of that sense only tends to sharpen the others. Do you know what that means? We feel things more acutely! If food tastes bad it tastes worse to us, if a room is dirty we feel every speck, if an insect scurries across the floor we hear it, and if it's cold we feel the cold more. Why don't you sell that painting and buy us fuel or extra blankets?""
 * All Just a Dream / Dreaming of Things to Come
 * Amnesiac Dissonance: The memories of the people in the framing stories have been rolled back to the point before they committed their misdeeds. They're all pretty shocked and confused about what they did.
 * Asshole Victim: All the main characters really, but especially Major Rogers, James Elliot, and Vault's Arthur Critchit.
 * Back From the Dead: Carl Maitland does this without realizing it in his story.
 * Beat Still My Heart: For something like eight or nine hours, actually.
 * Be Careful What You Wish For
 * The Dead Have Eyes: Notably averted in "Poetic Justice" (even if the makeup effect is a little primitive).
 * Dead to Begin With: Everyone in the framing story.
 * Disability Superpower: Invoked in "Blind Alleys", but it's definitely a Blessed With Suck situation.


 * Disposing of a Body: Joanne Clayton needed to find a way to do this before she could call the police about the Serial Killer outside her house.
 * Disproportionate Retribution: Sure, they did terrible things, but the people in the framing story cannot actually remember committing their various misdeeds at all. Nevertheless they still get sent to Hell.
 * Well, they're already dead, and therefore presumably beyond any chance of repentance or atonement.
 * Driven to Suicide: Grimsdyke.
 * Faking the Dead: Vault of Horror's Maitland.
 * Fan Disservice: The wife in "The Neat Job" mixes up the underwear drawers at one point. Terry-Thomas is not flattered by pink women's panties.
 * Framing Device: The characters are all learning why they're in Hell/paying for their sins by being forced to relive their stories.
 * Fridge Logic: If Ralph Jason is immortal thanks to his wife's wish, how can the Crypt Keeper send him to Hell?
 * Genre Savvy: The characters in "Wish You Were Here" are familiar with "The Monkey's Paw" and try to wish accordingly. (Not that it does them any good...)
 * The Grim Reaper: Shows up to give Edward Elliott a heart attack.
 * Hey, It's That Guy!: The Fourth Doctor as a disgruntled painter.
 * And Alexis Carrington as a murderous wife.
 * F. Alexander as a vengeful blind man.
 * Hollywood Voodoo: "Drawn and Quartered".
 * Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday
 * Neat Freak: Critchit.
 * The Neidermeyer: Rogers was one of these, and runs the Home for the Blind in exactly the same way.
 * Paedo Hunt: A trumped-up one of these helps drive Grimsdyke to suicide.
 * POV Cam: Used for part of the "Reflection of Death" segment.
 * Reality Subtext: Peter Cushing plays Grimsdyke, a widower who attempts to contact his wife via Ouija board. Cushing's own wife had died shortly before he took the role, and he evidently insisted that he would be perfect for it. Ouch.
 * The picture Mr. Grimsdyke is talking to? That's a picture of Cushing's late wife.
 * Spooky Seance: Averted. Grimsdyke actually has a rather sweet relationship with his deceased wife.
 * Sympathetic Magic: Used with paintings in "Drawn and Quartered."
 * Theme Serial Killer: Likes to wear a Santa suit. Got a kid who can open the door? Uh-oh.
 * Your Cheating Heart: Leads Carl Maitland to abandon his family.