Rent Tales from the Crypt (1972)

Carols, Coffins, and a Killer Claus - Tales from the Crypt review by griggs

A handful of strangers wander into some catacombs, meet a gleefully judgemental Crypt Keeper (Ralph Richardson), and suddenly they’re getting the worst possible “life choices” slideshow. One by one, they’re handed a tidy little moral fable where the punchline is comeuppance.

It’s quick, a bit camp, and often sharper than you’d think. The stories have a pretty blunt view of people: selfish, petty, and perfectly capable of doing something vile if it gets them what they want. Best of all, it doesn’t dawdle — tension, dark laugh, sting, move on.

Not every segment hits cleanly, but the peaks are genuinely nasty. Joan Collins in “…And All Through the House” turns Christmas Eve into tinsel-and-terror, and Peter Cushing brings a bruised sadness that stops the whole thing feeling like a cheap gimmick. By the end you’ve had a good time… and you’ve been quietly judged for it.

Weird Tales. - Tales from the Crypt review by Steve

One of the last, and the best of the horror anthologies that were popular around the turn of the seventies. The title comes from an American comic series of the 1950s from which some of these stories were taken. The others were from its sister publication, The Vault of Horror. So this is a selection of five tales of the grotesque, each with a deft climactic twist.

This is normally the domain of television, like in The Twilight Zone, but these collections were in widescreen and in colour. With extra gore. There is an excellent cast of well known British film actors. Ralph Richardson is the mysterious keeper of the crypt who hosts the round of story telling and then reveals to the miscreants their ultimate, dreadful fate.

All the stories are engaging and gradually become more gruesome, building to the final episode when Nigel Patrick is devoured by his own dog, at the hands of a gang of blind, elderly men! There's a pretty good retelling of The Monkey's Paw. Peter Cushing is quite poignant as a lonely, impoverished widower who is driven to suicide by his yuppie neighbours...

Until he emerges from his grave to take revenge on the ringleader. Most of the stars were coming to the end of their careers, but bring an abundance of ripe panache to their roles. The constant humour keeps the horror playful rather than cruel. While this is all extremely formulaic, it's also entertaining and obviously made with respect for the genre.