The Vault of Horror (film)

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The Vault of Horror
Theatrical release poster.
Directed by	Roy Ward Baker
Produced by	Milton Subotsky Max Rosenberg
Written by	Milton Subotsky (screenplay)
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	November, 1973
Running time	83 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

The Vault of Horror (otherwise known as Vault of Horror, Further Tales from the Crypt and Tales from the Crypt II) is a British portmanteau horror film made in 1973 by Amicus Productions. Like its predecessor, Tales from the Crypt, it is based on stories from the EC Comics series Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror written by Al Feldstein and Bill Gaines. The film was directed by Roy Ward Baker, and filmed on location and at Twickenham Studios.

It stars Terry Thomas, Denholm Elliot, Curt Jurgens, Tom Baker, Michael Craig, Terence Alexander, Glynis Johns and Daniel and Anna Massey.

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Five strangers meet in a lift in a non-descript office block in London. They find themselves taken to the sub-basement level, although none of them appears to have pressed for that location. Once there, they discover a plush room they think is a gentlemen’s club, and find that the lift door has closed behind them and they can’t get out. Resigned to waiting for help, they settle down with some drinks and discuss their lifelike recurring nightmares.

Midnight Mess - Rodgers (Daniel Massey) tracks down his sister (Anna Massey) to a strange little town and kills her so that he can claim their 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 may not be as dead as he thinks, and he is the dish of the day.

The Neat Job – Gritchit (Thomas) is an obsessively neat individual who marries Eleanor (Johns) a younger trophy wife who turns out not to be the domestic goddess he hoped for. His constant nagging and bullying about the mess she makes eventually drives her mad and she hits him over the head with a hammer before cutting him up and stacking the pieces neatly in jars in their basement – including his “odds and ends.”

This Trick’ll Kill You – Sebastian (Jurgens) is a magician on a working holiday in India, where he and his wife are trying to find 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, kills her and he and his wife try to make the trick their own. The rope has other ideas though; his wife disappears, an ominous patch of blood appears on the roof, and he is left hanging.

Bargain in Death – Maitland (Craig) is buried alive as part of an insurance scam concocted with his friend Alex. Two trainee doctors bribe a gravedigger to dig up his “corpse” to help with their studies. Alex double-crosses Maitland, leaving him to suffocate. 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, apologising to the doctors for the damage to the head.

Drawn and Quartered – Moore (Baker) is a poor painter living on Haiti. When he finds that he has been cheated by members of the art establishment, he goes to a voodoo priest and his paintings are given voodoo power – what is done to them happens to their subjects. He paints his betrayers and takes his revenge, but leaves a self portrait in his glass-roofed studio below where men are working with turpentine, and suffers for his art.

When the story of the final dream is told, the five ponder the meaning of their nightmares. The lift door opens, and the five 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.