A fine cast elevate this otherwise rather humdrum Amicus anthology film which returns to the EC Comics well from which the company’s Tales from the Crypt (1972) had been drawn but which strangely featured no stories culled from the Vault of Horror comic itself (they all come from Tales from the Crypt or Shock SuspenStories). As with all of the Amicus anthologies there’s a fair bit of dead wood but at least two of the stories are a lot of fun and director Roy Ward Baker and writer Milton Subotsky had the good sense to bookend the films with the two winners.
The framing device this time has echoes of Jean-Paul Sartre’s existential classic Huis Clos, first performed in 1944 but that’s as highbrow as the film gets. A group of men (Harold Rogers (Daniel Massey), Arthur Critchit (Terry-Thomas), Sebastian (Curd Jürgens), the inevitable Maitland (Michael Craig) – it’s a Milton Subotsky script, of course there’s a Maitland involved – and Moore (Tom Baker)) enter a lift in a London tower block, Instead of being deposited on the ground floor they find themselves in a sub-basement in what appears to be an exclusive members club. Unable to get out, the men start telling each other about their very realistic recurring dreams.
Midnight Mess (taken from a story in Tales from the Crypt no.35)
Thanks to it’s macabre punchline, this first story is perhaps the best remembered and most fondly recalled. Rodgers follows his estranged sister Donna (Anna Massey) to a small English village where he kills her to get his hands on the family inheritance. Celebrating, he repairs to a local restaurant only to find that it’s frequented by vampires… Midnight Mess gets things off to a flying start but really the story is as slim as the rest. It’s just that jolting final image that people remember, Rogers strung upside down from the ceiling, a tap inserted in his jugular and the vampires – including his newly turned sister – queuing up for a drink. But it’s a fun start to the film and certainly isn’t dull – the real life Massey siblings do all the acting heavy lifting but there’s a lovely cameo from Jerold Wells as an urbane waiter (“The table d’hôte is rather nice, sir. Juice, soup, roast, sweet, coffee.”)
The Neat Job (from Shock SuspenStories no.1)
Terry-Thomas has a rare semi-serious role as the obsessive neat freak Arthur Critchit who has recently married marries the clumsy and forgetful Eleanor (Glynis Johns). She turns out to be far less houseproud than the tyrannical Arthur whose constant abusive bullying drives Eleanor (Glynis Johns) over the edge, leading to murder and the storage of body parts in neatly labelled jars (there’s a nice gag with a jar labelled “odds and ends” – it’s left to the audience to decide which body parts are stored therein.) Terry-Thomas is great as the unreasonably picky Arthur and is given a good run for his money by Johns as the much harried Eleanor. Fans of hideous 70s decor (and there are some it seems) are in for a treat throughout The Vault of Horror but A Neat Job commits some of the most egregious crimes against good taste ever seen in a British film, the gruesome interior design matched only by Terry-Thomas’ horrible cravat and Johns’ eye-watering ensembles.
This Trick’ll Kill You (from Tales from the Crypt no.33)
Things take a turn for the dull in story three which has stage magician Sebastian and his wife Inez (Dawn Addams) in India searching for new tricks and gimmicks for their act. When they see a young woman (Jasmina Hilton) apparently charming a rope out of a basket with a flute they thing they’ve hit the jackpot but she’s reluctant to reveal how it’s done. So the couple murder her and steal the rope which then takes its revenge on them in a blaze of low key special effects. It’s all nicely enough done but unremarkable – there’s nothing particularly special about this one.
Bargain in Death (from Tales from the Crypt no.28)
The film hits rock bottom with the tonally inconsistent and very light Bargain in Death. Struggling horror writer Maitland (“There’s no money in horror”) hatches a suitably macabre plan – he’s going to fake his own death with the help of his friend Alex (Edward Judd) and claim on the insurance. But Maitland is double crossed and there’s a coincidence-packed finale involving a car crash, two trainee doctors (Robin Nedwell and Geoffrey Davies from the the hit television series Doctor at Large (1971)) and Arthur Mullard as a cockney gravedigger armed with a handy shovel. As noted in the script, it’s “a preposterous story,” not terribly well told and the mix of horror and comedy is hopelessly misjudged, speeded up comedy scenes sitting uncomfortably alongside the more macabre moments.
Drawn and Quartered (from Tales from the Crypt #26)
Thankfully, the final story is a big improvement. Artist Moore has retreated to Haiti after being shunned by the art establishment back in Blighty. He learns from a visiting acquaintance that some of his work has in fact been sold for huge sums of money by art dealers Diltant (Denholm Elliott) and Gaskill (John Witty) working in cahoots with critic Fenton Breedley (Terence Alexander). Given voodoo powers by a local priest he finds that his portraits can be used to injure or kill the subject. He returns to London to exact his revenge but isn’t as careful with his self-portrait as he should have been… The “tropical island of Haiti” is more like Haiti, Shepperton and never convinces but a bearded Baker (who gets a lovely bit of business when we first see him outside the lift, back turned to the camera as if distracted by something in the corridor outside) is suitably intense and a lot of fun as the vengeful artist and there are flashes here and there of the sort of gory business that Subotsky always claimed that Amicus never went in for. After Moore tells his story, the men – except Sebastian, strangely enough, all vanish in the graveyard outside their prison, Sebastian returning to the room after explaining that they are all damned and forced to retell their stories for eternity.
The Vault of Horror retains some of the grisly spirit of the original comics, with characters even talking to themselves, explaining plot points in handy soundbites, much as comic characters tend to do. As noted Subotsky frequently claimed that Amicus horrors did without the more explicit gore of their Hammer contemporaries but The Vault of Horror belies that claim. It suffered heavy cuts, particularly in the USA where some of the grislier moments (the tap in the neck, the dismemberment of Arthur Critchit, some of the fates that befall Moore’s victims) were softened with sudden freeze frames. Famously, stills exist of the cast – or some of them; Frobe is replaced by a not terribly convincing lookalike – done up in zombie make-up at the climax, a scene notably missing from the film itself. Some maintain that they’ve actually seen this scene but it appears to never actually have been shot and the images were intended for publicity purposes.
The Vault of Horror is a second tier Amicus anthology but it has just enough moments to make it a fun if lightweight affair. Like the rest of the series, it’s hit and miss but when it gets it right it’s an entertaining if almost instantly forgettable film – better than the tedious Torture Garden but not a patch on Tales from the Crypt or the subsequent From Beyond the Grave (1974). The balance of humour and horror is hopelessly out of whack but the fine cast smooths over some of the drier patches and the gory uncut version is certainly an eye-opener.
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