Tales From The Crypt

Tales from the Crypt (1972)

Runtime: 92 minutes

Directed by: Freddie Francis

Starring: Joan Collins, Peter Cushing, Ian Hendry, Richard Greene, Patrick Magee

From: Amicus

This is a horror anthology that you should check out if you dug the old TV show from the 1990's: 

This isn't exactly like the famed Tales from the Crypt TV show but for those that enjoyed the macabre delights of that, they probably will like this too. There is a Cryptkeeper, although it's a white British dude (Ralph Richardson) in a monk robe and not a wisecracking skeletal puppet. There is the standard old horror anthology setup-five random people end up together and they are stuck with a sixth mysterious person who tells terrifying stories about them-yet it is what you'd expect from Tales from the Crypt: bad human beings do some awful things and they are punished for their devious actions.

As with the TV show, the stories (at least most of the episodes from the show did) came from the eponymous comic or other EC Comics titles. All were macabre delights to me in their own ways. They include a tale set during Christmas-resulting in the ironic juxtaposition of bad things happening while holiday carols play in the background-another one where the resolution seems like a trap from the Saw universe, and a rather interesting version of The Monkey's Paw where knowledge of The Monkey's Paw story is used to play with conventions.

The cast is uniformly fine; I'll note Joan Collins as she is a famous name from the past and the only one of the quintet to be a woman. It is always nice seeing Peter Cushing, and the role he plays is a heartbreaking one; you'll be happy to see him get revenge on a pretty heinous human being that treated him cruelly. It's not over the top like the TV show tended to be-even then, if you liked that then you'll probably like this.