Tales From the Crypt (1972) – Hooptober Challenge #1
Requirements:
- Countries (1/6) – England
- Decades (1/8) – 1970s
- Amicus Films (1/1)
- Peter Cushing films (1/2)
Howdy. I believe in Hooptober. And I believe in spreading the word of Hooptober as a really fun way to stretch your Halloween season and your Halloween thinking as we approach All Hallow’s Eve. What is it? It’s a horror film-watching / reviewing challenge that runs 31 (or more for extra credit) flicks of your (semi-)choice between the middle of September on up to Halloween.
The rules of the game allow some freedom of movement within the confines of the criteria. No matter what, you wind up with “free spaces,” but there are creative ways that viewers can double up on qualifiers to free up more from your own personal watchlist. Heck, you can try for six or more requirements by finding a clever intersecting movie. Is it even possible that founder/curator Cinemonster creates some criteria specifically to point us to the biggest intersecting movie? I won’t ask the man because I like the Schroedinger’s Cat-like limbo effect of not knowing.
Anyhow, the rules do cause you to branch out more than you likely would on your own. It gets you out of your bubble or bubbles. The film requirements create a buckshot spray of film selections that span both the decades and the globe. It exposes you to creators, studios, stars, or even notable character actors you might not have known otherwise (like the under-discussed Amicus Films in my case this year). It allows you to turn movie knowledge weaknesses into strengths, if not competencies. It allows us commemoration, in terms of recognizing icons that have passed. It allows us veneration of the titans of the genre, and it allows us to see so many colors of the horror spectrum.
Check Out J.M. Brandt’s Upcoming Comic: ‘Swallower of Shades’
I was going to be participating anyway, but I am teaming up with Horror Geek Life because they’re an awesome site with a shared interest, have shown support for my past projects in ways I’m forever grateful for, and I’m a glutton for exposure when I’m promoting a book. The Number One For Realsies reason I’m writing on behalf of HGL for my Hooptober is because I hope that it’ll hold me accountable in ways I can’t hold myself. Need that extra push to truly finish all 31 by the stroke of 12:00 on Halloween Night? How’zabout publicly saying you’ll finish all 31 in a movie review series for a group of folks and strangers and horror kinsfolk that read and follow a great horror culture site?
There is no right way or wrong way to do Hooptober. It is just a game, after all. Don’t want to review and stretch your writing brain as part of the exercise? Don’t. Not vibing with watching three satan/devil-centric horror flicks? Bummer. But it’s not like there’s some Secret Hooptober Police (please don’t let that be a thing) that will knock down your door. Did life get in your way, and 31 just wasn’t doable from life twists and turns and unexpected speedbumps and unexpected opportunities? That was me for a good deal of the years I’ve tried participating. I’m using Letterboxd, where the source of the challenge resides, to keep track of my personal Hooptober list (which might slightly alter over the course of time due to availability and last-minute mood changes).
You can follow me at @JMBrandt, and you can find the rules for this year, and follow the founder, Cinemonster, by getting to this link.
I’d known about this movie for ages… since my days on a long-since-forgotten horror movie message board. Yeah, I’m old. And this adaptation of Tales had always managed to stay on the far periphery of my watchlist. It was constantly the bridesmaid that you picked just to have an even number– never an actual contender when deciding what to throw on. My reluctance to watch it hinged mostly, and most unfairly, on the fact that I knew the film wouldn’t be the carnival of carefully curated shock shlock that was the HBO series. I knew before watching that this film traded in the maniacal, puntastic cackling puppet and John Kassir’s voice for something stodgy and British. It was clear, given the period and country of origin, that it would have none of the fever dream ’80s/90s charm of the television series– and instead would be given over to the prototypical quaint and glacial charisma of British horror from that era.
I’d known Amicus, from the message board I was on, as something like a Hammer also-ran. While I’d beefed up my Hammer repertoire over the decades, Amicus was an afterthought. It was a little bit of trivia I could conjure up to movie nerd friends that weren’t horror die-hards to show just how deep my well was. So I gleefully embraced the requirement by Cinemonster to make sure and watch 2 Amicus movies. After a rough day in a rough week, it was the perfect thing to throw on to kick off my Hooptober.
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Let me tell you, oh my brothers and sisters, I was wrong. Damn wrong. Also-ran, nothing! Tales From the Crypt goes way harder than it had any right to. Don’t allow my reluctances to be yours. This should be watched, and watched soon.
A tour group is being led through a series of catacombs and is warned that it would be dangerous to stray. Soon enough, however, a couple of circumstances wind up creating a small cadre of stragglers. Attempting to navigate their way back to the tour, they make a wrong turn. The chamber they enter seals once they’ve all gone in, and a mysterious robed figure appears and instructs the assembly to take a seat. Not all is what it seems. Cue eerie theremin music.
Rather than a decrepit corpse, the film’s Cryptkeeper is a bit closer to the original EC Comics series (on which the TV show was based). For some reason, the movie didn’t go full bore with their Cryptkeeper– and instead of having him be a horrifically hunched and warted ghoul of a man, they instead went with a modest creep job on distinguished Shakespearian actor, Sir Ralph Richardson. The effect was not what I would have tried for; lending an air of menacing gravitas instead of the slightly churlish and tongue-in-cheek tone set in the comic (and perfected by the HBO series).
One by one, the group confronts the Cryptkeeper, either demanding to know why they’re trapped or asking to be let out of the chamber. Each time, the Cryptkeeper responds with some sort of suggestive monologue that implies the visitors have a specific reason for being in the catacombs that day… and each leads into a story in the flick. Yeah, we have an anthology on our hands! If you know your horror, you know that anthologies are one of the riskiest propositions in the genre. Being good makes you a classic. Having one stinker in an otherwise sterling set of stories marks you as uneven. And any worse than that and you’re largely forgotten. It’s a high-wire act, for certain. This film had an ace up its sleeve, however– 27 issues of multiple stories to draw from in its namesake’s 5-year run on the newsstands.
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The first segment (entitled “And All Through The House”) features none other than Joan Collins as the main character. The pacing was a little bit off, but it’s a fun story. Joan murders her husband on Christmas Eve, and it turns out that there is a homicidal maniac on the loose at the same time. You can see where it is heading pretty early on, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not enjoyable.
The next piece (“Reflection of Death”) involves a man abandoning his family for his side piece… but he encounters a snag on his way over. The story, which occupies a similar space to Lovecraft’s “The Outsider,” tends to drag a little. The premise overcomes the execution, and it winds up having enough juice to keep you going through it.
Third time’s the charm! The third sequence (“Poetic Justice”) is the segment that the movie is perhaps best known for. It stars Peter Cushing as a lowly retired toymaker who enjoys spending his time entertaining the neighborhood children and providing them with salvaged playthings out of the kindness of his heart. For the uninitiated, Cushing is never anything short of magnetic on-screen (I’m at 18 of his movies and counting). That he plays a sympathetic character is a bit of a departure for me, but he plays kindly and pitiful every bit as well as he does cold and calculating or manic and devious. Cushing’s toymaker attracts the ire of a spiteful neighbor and his enabling partner.
I’d like to pause for a moment to give big props to the film for utilizing a gay character couple in 1972 and not resorting to their use providing comic relief. While the characters are the bads in the story, their orientation appears simply incidental and matter-of-fact as opposed to the source of their villainy. Thank goodness for progress in inclusivity and the depiction of the human spectrum, no matter how small!
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And now, back to the story. The neighbors conceive of a plan to drive away Cushing’s character from the neighborhood– as his salvaging habits and his collection of stray dogs are seen as dragging down the property value of the whole neighborhood. The plan works a little too well as they systematically take away everything good in the toymaker’s life. And that has some unexpected consequences. The makeup and practical effects in this segment are top-notch, and this is exactly the sort of story you’d want to see in a collection of Tales if you grew up with the HBO series the way that I did.
“Wish You Were Here” is the next story in the film. It is a really pleasant spin on the Monkey’s Paw trope. It contains all the bite and black humor that sets the Tales From The Crypt stories apart from other horror collections. As a PSA to any of you out there, if you find yourself with some sort of magical way of having your wishes granted, I highly advise you to hire a team of lawyers, philosophers, and scientists as a brain trust to ensure that each wish is carefully crafted to excise any loopholes or unexpected consequences. Either that or give up while you’re ahead and never make even your first wish.
The final segment of the story, “Blind Alleys,” really stands apart from the rest of the stories. It presages the torture porn films of later decades in a way I hadn’t seen before. It is sadistic and devilish. It follows the story of a distinguished military man with some major personality flaws taking over a poor house for the blind. When the Major’s cruelty becomes too much to bear, he is shown the error of his ways in a most egregious and hardcore fashion. For British horror of this era, this is as metal as things get. You could easily write some Cannibal Corpse songs about this story, and that’s as far as I’ll get towards spoiling things. I will say, though, that this sequence cemented Patrick Magee (who I recognized most easily as the crippled writer from A Clockwork Orange) as one of my favorite character actors.
All told, the movie ranks among the best horror anthologies out there. The director, Freddie Francis (who, in addition to directing several horror flicks, went on to do the cinematography for The Elephant Man and Cape Fear, among others), plays things very conservatively. Like its British contemporaries in the Hammer films, the directorial style is very plain and feels more or less like a stageplay or television soap. But the content makes up for any lack of flourish or spice… and the performances by a number of accomplished thespians round things out into a really solid movie. Not a bad way to kick off my Hooptober!
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