The Vault of Horror (film)
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| The Vault of Horror | |
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.jpg/200px-Vault_of_Horror_(1973).jpg) Theatrical release poster. |
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| Directed by | Roy Ward Baker |
| Produced by | Milton Subotsky Max Rosenberg |
| Written by | Milton Subotsky (screenplay) |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | March, 1973 |
| Running time | 83 min. |
| Language | English |
| Allmovie profile | |
| 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, Dawn Addams, Denholm Elliot, Curt Jurgens, Tom Baker, Michael Craig, Terence Alexander, Glynis Johns, Mike Pratt, Robin Nedwell, Geoffrey Davies, Daniel Massey and Anna Massey.
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[edit] Synopsis
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 when his jugular vein is tapped out as a beverage dispenser.
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, but Alex double-crosses Maitland, leaving him to suffocate. Two trainee doctors (Nedwell and Davies) bribe a gravedigger to dig up his “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, 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.
[edit] Production Notes
- In the segment Bargain in Death, a character can be seen reading a copy of the novelisation of the earlier Amicus film, Tales from the Crypt.
- Mike Pratt has a small part in Midnight Mess
[edit] DVD Release
The Vault Of Horror, along with the prequel Tales from the Crypt, was released on a double feature DVD on September 11, 2007. Both films are given a PG rating for the DVD set.
This version is edited, with some of the gorier scenes removed/altered:
- The scene in Midnight Mess where a vampire is filling his glass from the tap in Rodgers' jugular is censored: it is shown as a still frame with Rodgers' neck (and the installed tap) blacked out - only the vampire's hand is shown. Based on the music edit, more of the film was removed than the still frame takes up. However, the deleted scene is included in the trailer for the film, albeit in black and white.
- There is a freeze-frame in The Neat Job at the moment Eleanor kills her husband.
- A scene showing Gaskill's bleeding wrist stumps is removed from Drawn And Quartered.
[edit] Continuity
- In Drawn and Quartered, as Moore enters the voodoo priest's hut, there is a totem typical of Native American tribes in the United States Pacific Northwest.
