Amicus - The Studio That Made Us Scream and Scream Again E-Book

Thomas Baxter

• Herausgeber: epubli
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 312

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Amicus - The Studio That Made Us Scream and Scream Again offers an entertaining and affectionate overview of the legacy of this beloved studio and the films they produced. In the concluding chapter we shall also look at the work Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg did after Amicus folded. So, open that decanter of brandy, make sure there aren't any voodoo dolls or disembodied hands lying around, stay out of those catacombs, lock the doors lest an escaped maniac dressed as Father Christmas be lurking, watch out for the Werewolf Break, and prepare to enter the spooky, mysterious, eclectic, and wonderful world of Amicus Productions!

Leseprobe

Amicus The Studio That Made Us Scream  and Scream Again

Thomas Baxter© Copyright 2024 Thomas Baxter

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ContentsIntroductionIt's Trad, Dad! (1962)Just for Fun (1963)Dr Terror's House of Horrors (1965)Dr Who and the Daleks (1965)The Skull (1965)The Psychopath (1966)Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966)The Deadly Bees (1967)The Terrornauts (1967)They Came from Beyond Space (1967)Torture Garden (1967)Danger Route (1967)A Touch of Love (1969)Scream and Scream Again (1970)The Mind of Mr Soames (1970)The House That Dripped Blood (1971)I, Monster (1971)Tales from the Crypt (1972)What Became of Jack and Jill? (1972)Asylum (1972)Vault of Horror (1973)And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973)From Beyond the Grave (1974)Madhouse (1974)The Beast Must Die (1974)The Land That Time Forgot (1974)At the Earth's Core (1976)The People That Time Forgot (1977)AftermathINTRODUCTIONThere was another British studio besides Hammer who did a fairly roaring trade in horror films in the sixties and seventies. Amicus (Latin for "friendship") Productions were created by Americans Milton Subotsky and Max J Rosenberg and - inspired by Hammer's fame - they gate-crashed the thriving (if thrifty) British horror scene. Rosenberg was a lawyer by trade while Subotsky was a horror and sci-fi buff who had worked as an editor in the army. At the time the British Government had an incentive that forced cinemas to show a quota of British made films and also offered tax breaks to British based productions. There was money to be made if you were shrewd enough and the Amicus legacy became a memorably enjoyable and colourful one.The Eady Plan, which Amicus took advantage of, was a government scheme introduced in 1950 to support and promote British film production. It was named after Sir Wilfred Eady, who was a senior Treasury official at that time. Under the Eady Plan, a levy was imposed on cinema admissions, with a certain percentage of the ticket price being allocated to the British Film Production Fund. This fund was then used to finance the production and distribution of British films. The levy was compulsory and lasted from 1957 until 1985. Amicus also managed to attract enough private investors to remain largely independent. Amicus were heavily influenced by the classic 1945 Ealing portmanteau chiller Dead of Night and although they produced all manner of films (from musical films to family Doctor Who adventures to espionage thrillers) they found their true niche with the anthology horror film. Four or five short tales within one film containing many famous guest stars - including crossover names from Hammer like Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Amicus would hire big name actors for a couple of days and that way star names could go on the poster without costing them too much money. So you'd get someone like Sir Ralph Richardson spending a day on Tales from the Crypt before going off to the West End at night to do a play. Amicus also featured some young unknown actors too who went on to fame - like Michael Gambon, Charlotte Rampling and Donald Sutherland.Amicus largely (but not always) eschewed the period and gothic trappings of Hammer and their anthology films were set in the present day. Because of this they remain a lot of fun now with the (obviously dated) seventies fashions. I actually have more vivid memories of watching the Amicus compendiums growing up than I do the Hammer films. Subotsky and Rosenberg based Amicus at Shepperton Studios. It was, in their words, a studio without walls and their business partnership was founded on a handshake rather than a contract. The relationship between them didn't always run smoothly but they had a knack of getting things done. They were very smart in managing to entice some big names (admittedly some of whom were on the way down) into their films and keeping costs minimal at the same time. Amicus Productions was a small team who became like a family. Milton Subotsky shunned a fancy office in London and instead used a little wooden hut at Shepperton as his base of operations. The contemporary settings of the horror compendiums were not only a clever way to save money (by not having to recreate period settings with costumes and sets) but also helped to make their films distinct from most of the Hammer films. Subotsky was more of a writer while Rosenberg was the one with the head for business. It was generally Rosenberg who came up with the (sometimes lurid) titles and marketing strategies while Subotsky (whatever his limitations as a writer you couldn't fault his enthusiasm) was more concerned with screenplays and hiring interesting people. The combined work ethic of the two men was formidable and even on their ramshackle budgets they made Amicus a real force in the industry for a time. Subotsky would sit in on the editing of the Amicus films to offer his suggestions. Rosenberg and Subotsky both read as many horror short stories and novels as they could in their search for stories that might be a good fit for an Amicus film. In the face of modern, more cutting edge American and Italian horror imports, the British horror film of the type Amicus and Hammer were making was looking old-fashioned by the mid-seventies (and the deluge of anthology horror/mystery shows on television probably didn't help Amicus either given that anthology horror was their stock-in-trade). Subotsky once said, only half in jest perhaps, that he made horror films because - "... it was the only kind of cinema where you could avoid sex and violence." It was true that the Amicus films were old fashioned (despite their contemporary trappings) but then that was all part of the charm. The films were distinctly British and happy to exist in their own little world. Amicus eventually branched off into some rather daft but colourful anachronistic family adventure sci-fi monster films that always seemed to have Doug McClure as the lead. They expired in the late seventies when Milton Subotsky and Max J Rosenberg went their separate ways. But what an enjoyable legacy they left behind for future generations to discover. In the book that follows we will examine every film that Amicus made and offer what is hopefully an entertaining and affectionate overview of the legacy of this beloved studio. In the concluding chapter we shall also look at the work Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg did after Amicus folded. So, open that decanter of brandy, make sure there aren't any voodoo dolls or disembodied hands lying around, stay out of those catacombs, lock the doors lest an escaped maniac dressed as Father Christmas be lurking, watch out for the Werewolf Break, and prepare to enter the spooky, mysterious, eclectic, and wonderful world of Amicus Productions!IT'S TRAD, DAD! (1962)Amicus weren't just responsible for anthology films in their relatively short (in studio terms) but hugely enjoyable years operating in cinema. Oh no. They produced a range of often weird and wonderful films. There were conventional horror films, family adventure films aimed at children, surreal espionage thrillers, eccentric sci-fi films, gothic thrillers, James Bondish spy films, even a drama and a vague attempt to make what you might call an exploitation film. They never had a huge amount of money to juggle with but Amicus were not afraid to take a few risks when the mood took them and they were always shrewd in spotting talented young actors - in addition to casting famous older names were happy to pick up some quick work as their careers wound down. The Amicus films are an eclectic bag and while not all of them are entirely successful it remains a great deal of fun to trawl through this back catalogue.It's Trad, Dad! (aka Ring-A-Ding Rhythm) was the first film officially produced by Amicus Productions. It was directed by Richard Lester (who would become known for his film work with the Beatles and on the Superman franchise with Christopher Reeve) and written by Milton Subotsky. This is not a horror film but a light hearted musical film. Amicus made a couple of musical films in their first years after formation and then found their real niche with the horror genre and also family friendly sci-fi. It appears that Amicus thought there might be money to be made in youth oriented musical films but then thought better of it quite sharpish and veered away from that. As such, the two musical films near the beginning of the Amicus story (a story we associate more than anything with horror) somewhat feel like out of place oddities which have stepped out of the lift on the wrong floor. Not to say these musicals are a complete waste of time though. They remain interesting time capsules of the early sixties and capture a specific period in British youth culture just prior to the guitar pop explosion of the sixties.The premise of It's Trad, Dad! has a pair of teenagers named Craig (Craig Douglas) and Helen (Helen Shapiro) fighting for the right to enjoy their love of jazz and music. The local mayor (Felix Felton), for reasons best known to himself, hates music and has banned the deployment of the jukebox and television in the coffee shop (old black and white British films are absolutely obsessed by coffee bars aren't they?) - or something along these lines. These are rather draconian powers for a humble mayor to wield! Suffice to say, the mayor is a right old grump and seems intent on stopping young people from having any fun whatsoever. Sounds slightly like the plot of Footloose doesn't it? Anyway, Craig and Helen decide to organise a big jazz concert to promote their passion for music. That'll show the stuffy old folks.The flimsy plot of the film, such as it is, doesn't really matter and is just an excuse for It's Trad, Dad! to throw in as many musical guest stars as it can muster and - to its credit - it does manage to attract a lot of them. I gather though that copyright issues stopped many of them from performing the songs they were most associated with. Despite the linking plot (and narration by comic actor Deryck Guyler - he of Please Sir! and Sykes fame), It's Trad, Dad! is more like a concert film than a conventional film. The actual concert never feels like it is part of the same film as the nonsense about banning the jukebox. This threadbare linking device always veers on the edge of feeling slightly pointless. Once a music numbers kick in it feels more like watching a very old edition of Top of the Pops and you forget that there even is a plot.One of the main leads here is Helen Shapiro. Shapiro was a famous singer in Britain at the time. In 1961, Shapiro had two British number ones with You Don't Know and Walkin' Back to Happiness. Here's the remarkable thing though. Shapiro was a schoolgirl when she became a star. She was only fifteen when It's Trad, Dad! came out. Shapiro actually left school at fourteen to become a singer (which I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be allowed to do today). If they made this film nowadays, the Shapiro part would probably be played by some twenty-eight year-old model pretending to be a teenager. It's quite novel to see a 'youth' film where the teenagers are relatively normal and still kids in real life too.Shapiro is a very likeable presence in the film and has a down to earthness that is rather charming. She feels like someone who could live next door or work in the local chip shop. Shapiro is no great shakes as an actor but it feels like she is just playing herself in the film so it doesn't really matter too much. She belts out several songs in the film in fine fashion. It's Trad, Dad! captures her at the high water mark of her short brush with fame. Once pop music and guitars came in and you had a new wave of female singers like Sandie Shaw *, Helen Shapiro suddenly seemed old hat at the tender age of sixteen. I gather that when Shapiro went out of fashion she took to the working clubs and carried on singing. She can always say though that she once topped the bill when she appeared with The Beatles in their early days.Amicus were shrewd enough to throw in a number of American acts here to boost the international appeal of the film. The American artists shot their contributions in the United States and then were spliced into the film (you can tell too because you don't see the British audience during these numbers). There are a vast slew of musical guest stars in the film and the musical numbers are pleasant enough and distinct from the vague plot that loosely connects everything together. The plot of the film doesn't really matter. You get Gene Vincent, Chubby Checker, The Paris Sisters, and many others. Shapiro's main co-star is Craig Douglas, who was also a popular singer in Britain at the time. Like Shapiro though, his time at the top was short lived. He had his last hit in 1963 and ended up singing on cruise ships. He can though, like Shapiro, say that he once topped a bill which included The Beatles. The actual staging of the concert scenes isn't what you'd describe as slick but Richard Lester does manage to bring a choppy energy to proceedings which helps the film survive some of the jazzy interludes. Only two years later he would direct A Hard Day's Night. You could say then that It's Trad, Dad! was sort of like his film school and helped him cut his teeth on this type of film. There are a number of familiar faces in It's Trad, Dad! besides the musical guest stars. Alan 'Fluff' Freeman makes an appearance (I wonder if this was how Fluff got his part in Dr Terror's House of Horrors? Presumably, Milton Subotsky and Freeman became friends on this film?) and understandably seems more at home in this concert film musical world than he did in Dr Terror's House of Horrors. He is drawn into the film because the teenagers seek out disc jockeys to help them. The cockney comic actor Arthur Mullard (later to appear in Vault of Horror) also features, as do presenters/disc jockeys David Jacobs and Pete Murray. It's Trad, Dad! is unavoidably dated and a few of the musical acts might have you glancing at your watch but - generally - this is an interesting musical film that will probably appeal more to those who like the music from this era. Trivia - Milton Subotsky said that It's Trad, Dad! was his favourite film out of the ones he worked on. I suppose he must have liked musical films. * Sandie Shaw shot to fame in the 1960s armed with a supernatural voice, equally supernatural cheekbones, and a Vidal Sassoon bob. She had eight top ten singles and three number ones (she was only a teenager when she had her first one with the Burt Bacharach/Hal David song There's Always Something There to Remind Me) and was the first entrant from the United Kingdom to win the Eurovision Song Contest with Puppet on a String. Sandie Shaw fans tend to gloss over this particular song though and she hated it too (although I believe she has mellowed somewhat on her Eurovision experience in recent years). Despite her fame and vaguely exotic looks there always seemed to be something ordinary about Sandie Shaw that was very appealing. She was born in Dagenham and worked in a factory for a while and you could probably imagine her leaving an arena after a show and getting a bag of chips on the way home. You could picture Sandie Shaw drinking tea in a cafe with a sticky bun just as easily as you could imagine her at some swanky party. JUST FOR FUN (1963)Just for Fun was directed by Gordon Flemyng and written by Milton Sobotsky. Flemyng would later direct the two Doctor Who films that Amicus made. In his last years he directed on television shows like Minder and Lovejoy. Just for Fun is another early musical film from Amicus. Milton Subotsky said this film was hobbled because - unlike the first film - it wasn't made with EMI. Subotsky said EMI had all the hip and 'cool' new music artists in 1963 - none of which could appear in Just For Fun!The linking device here makes even less sense than it did with It's Trad, Dad! and isn't really an important part of the film. They just need an excuse for all the musical numbers to occur. The premise has the Prime Minister (Richard Vernon) angling for the youth vote but (stupidly) cutting the amount of pop music on television. That's clearly not a manifesto pledge designed to appeal to music mad youngsters in the 1960s. As a consequence, teenagers decide to reject the political parties and form their own one. To this end, they draft in a number of pop singers to help them. And so, once again, another thinly veiled concert film transpires.This is a decent enough musical film although the names on offer here seem somewhat less stellar than they were in It's Trad, Dad! on the whole. Brian Poole and the Tremeloes, Joe Brown, Bobby Vee, and so on. There'll be a large number of acts in the film you've never heard of. I don't think you'll be missing any pivotal moments in music history if you never get around to sitting through the whole of Just for Fun. It's all quite well done though for the time and the eclectic nature of the film manages to navigate it through some lulls. There are a lot comedy vignettes around the music and although none of these are very funny they do at least give the film a madcap energy at times. As with It's Trad, Dad!, it isn't so much that this is a very good film (because it isn't really) but more the fact that it serves as an interesting little time capsule on what was considered to be 'hip' in the Britain of 1963. It's Trad, Dad! made a tidy little profit for Amicus but Just for Fun didn't do so well and is generally regarded to be a weaker film. After this film came out Amicus evidently decided to move away from these types of 'Britpop' films and do something else entirely. Unavoidably, there are going to be musical numbers here that you could happily live without but some of them are very good and even anticipate the pop music that would dominate in the sixties. Interestingly, the camera operator for the film was Nicholas Roeg. Roeg makes Just for Fun look like a primitive form of music television before there was such a thing as music television. There's not really the anarchic spirit here you get with some sixties concert/music films but Roeg is doing his best to put his own little stamp on the film and it's always competent enough with a few nice little flourishes here and there.The background extras in old films like this are always fun and quite amusing from a modern perspective. You get lots of young women with beehive hairstyles and some spotty young men with jumpers and ties on. They all gyrate away in preposterous fashion. Pop star of the era Mark Wynter is the main lead and he's alright if a trifle bland. Billy Fury he is not. Wynter had a bit more staying power than Craig Douglas and was a star for most of the sixties. He was also a stage actor and so he's a bit more competent in the thesping department than your average singer turned actor - if still not exactly Laurence Olivier. Wynter was later in the British horror film The Haunted House of Horror (a comic haunted house caper with Frankie Avalon and a young Richard O'Sullivan) in 1969. Sadly, there is no Helen Shapiro this time around though. It's a shame they couldn't have got Shapiro back and made this more of a direct sequel of sorts. Perhaps the fifteen minutes of fame afforded to Helen Shapiro was nearly up by the time they made this. Just for Fun is, like It's Trad, Dad!, awash with familiar faces away from the musical acts. Alan Freeman (who seems to be enjoying himself again and in his element in this world of music and teeny boppers) and David Jacobs return to play disc jockeys (I suppose they are really just playing themselves). Unfortunately, Jimmy Savile also features as one of the disc jockeys in Just for Fun. Amicus could hardly know what the future held but it obviously doesn't add too much in the way of charm and enjoyment to an old film these days when you see Jimmy Savile in the cast. Presumably, they'd edit Savile out now if they showed this on television.Other familiar faces in Just for Fun include Kenny Lynch (who would of course return to Amicus for Dr Terror's House of Horrors), Irene Handl, and Dick Emery (Dick Emery was a very famous comedian in the seventies who played many sorts of characters in his sketch shows, sort of like the Harry Enfield of his day you might say). Just for Fun feels a slight step down from It's Trad, Dad! with the slightly less famous names and the lack of Helen Shapiro but if you did like the previous Amicus musical film you'll probably get some enjoyment out of this one too. Just for Fun is rather silly in its linking premise and unavoidably dated but it serves as another time capsule window into this specific period of British cinema and music. From here on in though it would be, with one or two exceptions, horror and sci-fi for Amicus.DR TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS (1965)Dr Terror's House of Horrors was directed by Freddie Francis and kick-started the Amicus series of British compendium horror films. The film was shot at Shepperton Studios with a budget of £105,000. Amicus creative chiefs Milton Subotsky and Max J Rosenberg decided to take on rival Hammer (Subotsky had apparently submitted a Frankenstein script to Hammer before their success with the old Universal staples but the script was rejected and left him with a certain bitterness towards the famed horror studio *) by adopting the anthology structure of the classic 1945 Ealing film Dead of Night (the treatment for Dr Terror's House of Horrors apparently dated way back to the era just after Dead of Night).Dr Terror's House of Horrors is the real start of the Amicus story because the horror anthology would become their stock-in-trade. It is the horror anthologies that Amicus are most famous for and the horror anthologies that we love the most in their catalogue. I rewatch the Amicus anthology films every year and I never get tired of them. There is just something wonderfully entertaining and cosy about them. Anthology horror films were certainly not a new idea - even in 1965. Anthology horror films have been a staple of the genre for at least a hundred years. Richard Oswald's Eerie Tales (Unheimliche Geschichten) was released way back in 1919 and offered stories by Poe and Robert Louis Stevenson framed by paintings in a supernatural bookshop. The structure of the anthology film is usually the same. You get a number of stories (modern anthology horror films seem to have an awful lot while the old anthologies were usually more compact with three or four) and a framing device/wraparound of some sort to link the tales. The framing device of the horror anthology film is usually great fun. I'm always disappointed when I encounter a horror anthology that eschews this tradition and plunges us straight into the opening story.The Citizen Kane of anthology horror films is Ealing's 1945 portmanteau chiller Dead of Night. This film is so good it still provides a few shivers today all these years later. Dead of Night was the touchstone and the inspiration. The 1960s and 1970s were the boom decades for the anthology horror film. It was in these decades that Amicus made their famous compendium horrors in Britain and - elsewhere - we had classics like Kwaidan in Japan and Black Sabbath in Italy. Vincent Price also starred in the enjoyably colourful Twice-Told Tales and Tales of Terror.Amicus latching onto the anthology film was shrewd in hindsight because it distinguished them from Hammer. They were good at making anthology films too. By way of example, look at the other British anthology horror films made in or around the Amicus era - like Tales That Witness Madness, The Uncanny, and The Monster Club (and Milton Subotsky had a hand in those last two films - as we'll discuss later). While these films have their moments there is something a bit off about them. They don't have the cosy charm and entertainment factor of the Amicus films. Horror purists can be a trifle sniffy about the Amicus anthology horror films but to be nitpicky about them is to completely miss the point. These films are pure fun and great at what they do. The only one for me that doesn't quite live up to this blueprint is Torture Garden - but we'll get to that soon enough. A number of Hammer veterans were signed for Dr Terror's House of Horrors - not least genre icons Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee but also the director Freddie Francis (also of course an award winning cinematographer) and composer Elisabeth Lutyens. Lutyens was the first woman to score a horror film and enjoyed her status as the "Queen of horror".Donald Sutherland, later to become a star through films like M*A*S*H, Kelly's Heroes and Don't Look Now, was an unknown Canadian actor based in Britain at the time. He had studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and spent a year and a half in Repertory Theatre in Scotland. Dr Terror's House of Horrors was one of his early roles. Sutherland got $5,400 for the film and a free ride to work every morning with Max Rosenberg.Christopher Lee had an incredible 250+ screen credits to his name when he died. Lee was born in Westminster in 1922, the son of a Boer War veteran and Italian contessa. During World War 2 he was an intelligence officer in the Long Range Desert Patrol missions which formed the basis of the SAS. He had actually volunteered for the 1939/40 Finnish "Winter War" (when the Soviet Union invaded Finland and despite outnumbering the Fins in terms of soldiers, tanks and aircraft to a preposterous degree had a nightmarishly difficult campaign) prior to North Africa. He was also an RAF pilot until an eye injury grounded him. You honestly couldn't make up Lee's life if you tried. James Bond and Indiana Jones had nothing on him.The North African campaign defeated the Africa Korps made famous by Rommel and - crucially - stopped the Middle Eastern and Persian oil fields from falling into Axis hands. It also laid the foundation for the Allied invasion of Italy. Lee took part in this campaign too and climbed Mount Vesuvius three days before it erupted. He was at the Battle of Monte Cassino and also served in Churchill's Special Operations Executive - an elite organisation involved in espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in Nazi dominated Europe. The unofficial name for the SOE was The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.The SOE's activities are still classified and so Lee would never speak about his time serving with them. When the war ended, the multi-lingual Lee hunted Nazis for the Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects before turning his hand to acting at the age of 25. He had the first of his many film credits in 1948's Corridor of Mirrors (directed by Terence Young) and his path would eventually lead to Hammer Studios and his iconic portrayal of Dracula. Because Lee was such a commanding (6'5 in height) and polished presence it only took some contact lenses, a cape and a bit of make-up magic to turn him into a memorable Prince of Darkness. Lee and his great friend Peter Cushing were wonderful at lending class and gravitas to these old horror films.The actor, musician, and later beloved children's entertainer/presenter Roy Castle was added to Dr Terror's House of Horrors as jazz trumpeter "Biff" Bailey after Acker Bilk had to bail out due to ill health. The strangest cast member is surely Alan "Fluff" Freeman - who famously inspired the Harry Enfield character Dave Nice. The disc jockey and Top of the Pops presenter plays Bill Rogers in the "killer plant" segment of the film. Freeman was tentatively exploring an acting career at the time but his wooden performance in Dr Terror's House of Horrors seemed to put an end to this ambition. It seems that Fluff very wisely decided to stick to the day job after giving the old acting racket an experimental whirl. He had short roles in three more films - sensibly playing disc jockeys in two of them. Freeman also had a cameo in the musical film Absolute Beginners. Dr Terror's House of Horrors took around five weeks to shoot and wrapped on the 3rd of July 1964. It was released on the 5th of February 1965. The stories in the film were apparently based on decades old spooky yarns that Milton Subotsky had written for American radio. The film begins with a group of men (played by Alan Freeman, Neil McCallum, Donald Sutherland, Roy Castle, and Christopher Lee respectively) boarding a railway carriage on a fog billowed platform and sitting down in one of the compartments. There isn't much room left but, just before the train departs, one more traveller - the mysterious Doctor Schreck played by the great Peter Cushing - wants to get in. Once in the compartment with the men, Schreck soon snoozes off to sleep and his deck of Tarot cards spills out. "That's a funny looking deck man," says Roy Castle helpfully. Schreck, a "Doctor of Metaphysics", duly offers to use the cards to predict the future of each man, much to the annoyance in particular of Christopher Lee as sceptical and snooty art critic Franklyn Marsh. Marsh thinks that Schreck is nothing more than a charlatan. A confidence trickster. But he will he be proved right about this? Well, given that this is an Amicus anthology horror film, I certainly wouldn't rush out to place any bets on that at the bookies. The framing device - always of course an important component of the anthology film - works well enough in Dr Terror's House of Horrors for a number of reasons. First of all, the night train carriage location is atmospheric and could be conveyed in an effective fashion without requiring elaborate sets or special effects (Amicus never had the most lavish budgets at their disposal). Secondly, the framing device also brings all the main characters in the film together in a confined space, most saliently of course Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Why is this important? Well, because we want to see Cushing and Lee together onscreen if we can! We do and their sparring as the mysterious Schreck and the irritated and pompous Marsh is always enjoyable.The first story is called Werewolf and features Neil McCallum (like Donald Sutherland, McCallum was a Canadian based in Britain at the time) as Jamie Dawson, an architect who travels back to his old home in the Scottish Highlands to make some alterations for the new owner. There is however something not quite right about his old family home with strange noises soon coming from something prowling outside and the disappearance of the key to the cellar. Do spooky butler/groundskeeper Caleb (Peter Madden) and maid Valda (Katy Wild) know more than they are letting on? When Jamie does manage to investigate the cellar he finds a wall with fresh plaster concealing a dusty coffin. Could this be the resting place of Cosmo Valdemar, a former owner of the house who swore a curse on those that followed?A fairly solid first story, Werewolf, like Dr Terror's House of Horrors as a whole, is quite patently studio bound and restrictive in scope but still works relatively well with spooky stairways and cobwebbed cellars shrouded in half-light. The anachronistic aura (Scotland is depicted as being like something from Medieval times!) is both ludicrous and enjoyable at the same time and while there obviously wasn't an awful lot of money to spare in the production of this story they make the best of what they have and manage to generate some sense of atmosphere. McCallum's Scottish accent isn't bad although you would probably have to be Scottish to have the definitive say on this! He makes Jamie Dawson suitably wide-eyed as the strange goings on escalate and Peter Madden makes a nice enigmatic (and possibly mad) butler. Neil McCallum later appeared in television shows like UFO and Jason King but sadly died in 1976 when he was only 46. This story has quite a good almost Gothic ambiance and is the one segment here that possibly could have been stretched out into a longer mystery or even made a decent little low-budget feature length film in its own right. In many ways it's one of the more atypical Amicus compendium segments with its vague sense of time and period.You'll probably spot the ending a mile off but this is good fun nonetheless and certainly quite gripping at times as Dawson investigates the cellar and makes some eerie discoveries. Werewolf perhaps lacks the overblown style and arch melodrama of the American Poe/Vincent Price anthology film stories of the era but it serves as a competent introduction to the Amicus compendium franchise. What helps Dr Terror's House of Horrors is that the performances by the actors are played reasonably straight - however fantastical the situations are. Bernard Lee seems a bit bored in The Creeping Vine and Michael Gough is a trifle arch in Disembodied Hand but most of the performances in the film are fairly earnest. The next segment is The Creeping Vine and stars (for reasons probably best known to the producers of the film) legendary DJ Alan Freeman as Bill Rogers. Bill returns from a holiday with his wife Ann (Ann Bell) and daughter Carrole (Phoebe Sarah Nicholls) only to find a strange, leafy vine has taken root in the garden and wrapped itself around part of the house. I quite like a wild overgrown garden myself but Bill is determined to get rid of the vine. The vine, which seems to move of its own accord, refuses to yield to garden shears and eventually takes a disliking to the family dog. A perplexed Bill turns to professors Drake and Hopkins, played by Jeremy Kemp and Bernard Lee respectively. This pesky plant is soon proving to be very dangerous indeed.The Creeping Vine is a rather silly (although to be fair no one in the cast seems to be taking this nonsense too seriously) but oddly enjoyable second segment for Dr Terror's House of Horrors. A genial Freeman (perhaps wondering what on earth he is doing in the film in the first place) smiles throughout practically the entire story whatever perils the killer plant is threatening. No matter what happens, Freeman's facial expression rarely changes. Given that actors generally tend to convey fluctuating emotions through their face, well, you can see why old Fluff didn't have much of an acting career. Freeman's performance might not be the stuff of Oscar acceptance speeches but his presence does in a strange way make Dr Terror's House of Horrors more curious and cultish. It is undeniably a unique experience to watch Freeman and Bernard Lee (who was of course M in the James Bond films) trapped in a house by an intelligent, indestructible plant. Only someone with the authority of Bernard Lee could get away with lines like "A plant like that could take over the world!" Let's be honest, it's hard to believe that the unruly vine (which moves incredibly slowly) in Freeman's back garden is ever going to take over the world! That vine would be hard pressed to get to the end of the street. Ann Bell, who play's Bill's wife in The Creeping Vine, would go to be in virtually every television show ever made. The Bill, Holby City, Inspector Morse, and so on. She is probably best known though for playing Marion in the war drama Tenko. Phoebe Sarah Nicholls, who plays the little girl in this segment, later played John Merrick's mother in the David Lynch film The Elephant Man. Phoebe Sarah Nicholls has enjoyed a long and busy acting career since Dr Terror's House of Horrors. She's been in everything from Brideshead Revisited to I'm Alan Partridge to Transformers: The Last Knight. The Creeping Vine is not exactly Day of the Triffids (a film version of which was co-directed by Freddie Francis) and never really goes anywhere but the pure brazen daftness of this story is entertaining enough although  - and this is perhaps a general criticism of Dr Terror's House of Horrors as a whole - it could have been a tad scarier with a couple of twists. If one had to be pedantic you could say that this segment never really develops much in the duration of its (admittedly shortish) running time. Still, if you can't at least glean some enjoyment from a segment where an intelligent plant cuts phone lines and traps Fluff Freeman and James Bond's boss in a house then there is really no hope for you. Next up to have his fortune told by Doctor Schreck is jazz musician Biff Bailey - played by Roy Castle - in the segment called Voodoo. Voodoo is the only segment in the film that makes any attempt to go for a Swinging Sixties backdrop with its jazz musicians and nightclub scenes. Biff and his chirpy cockney band, as Doctor Schreck predicts, are naturally delighted when told they are headed to exotic Haiti for a tour. But once there, Biff just can't resist nosing around and pilfering the local voodoo beat in the form of some scribbled notes - despite expressly being warned not to. "Do not steal from the god Dambala!" Back in England, what will happen when Biff and his group attempt to play these forbidden voodoo tunes? Something supernatural I'd wager.This is quite a fun segment and it really wouldn't be an Amicus anthology film with at least one hokey voodoo themed story. Although the tone here is more humorous than anything (and it does contain a calypso musical number by Kenny Lynch that we probably could have happily lived without) this story does have a few creepy and atmospheric moments - especially back in London where Castle is spooked walking down some dark streets at night with the wind picking up and litter fluttering on the breeze. Haiti is obviously not a location shoot but a few Carry On Up the Jungle style sets but it's all part of the ramshackle charm. Voodoo is hopelessly dated but then it was made a long time ago and these sorts of films are not to be taken too seriously. You couldn't get away today with the general 'don't trust foreigners, they are all highly mysterious and primitive and probably into black magic or something' air that permeates this story. Roy Castle, a much more competent actor than the hapless Alan Freeman was in the last segment, is good value as Biff and throws himself into the part with his customary enthusiasm. He does make Biff believably terrified at times and although he did something he shouldn't have done we root for Biff all the same because it is impossible not to like Roy Castle. It helps too of course that Roy Castle can play his trumpet for real and so makes the musical sequences more convincing. Perhaps the biggest criticism one could have with Voodoo is that the ending feels a bit weak and sudden and so makes the segment as a whole feel more underwhelming than it should have been. One flaw with Dr Terror's House of Horrors is that it doesn't give the audience any outrageous twists. You can predict fairly accurately the how the various denouements will pan out. Voodoo is very silly at times but it does have some atmospheric flourishes and the musical interludes are not with their charms. You wouldn't say this was the best segment in Dr Terror's House of Horrors but it is entertaining and a fairly breezy segment that doesn't outstay its welcome. The best story, Disembodied Hand, is next and features Christopher Lee as the pompous and vitriolic art critic Franklyn Marsh - a man who makes Brian Sewell look like Frank Spencer. "Very well. Shuffle your cards, foretell my destiny," snorts the sceptical Marsh to Doctor Schreck in the train compartment. We then see Marsh in an art gallery mercilessly trashing the work of painter Eric Landor (Michael Gough) with enormous glee and pomposity as a group of sycophants hang onto his every word.