The Satanic Rites of Dracula

Oh! Look at the month! It's October, so it looks like, over the next 30 days, I'll be dumping a bunch of the horror films I've saved up over the year. You have been warned.

Oh! And Saturday is traditionally "Take Out the Trash" Day.

The Satanic Rites of Dracula (aka Dracula and his Vampire Bride)(Alan Gibson, 1973)  The last of Christopher Lee's appearances as Dracula in the Hammer series is in this scraping-the-bottom-of-the-coffin sequel to Dracula A.D. 1972. The same writer. The same director. And Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing are in it, as well as Michael Coles as Inspector Murray and the character of Van Helsing's granddaughter Jessica returns, although not played by Stephanie Beachum this time, but by Joanna Lumley. If you'll recall, in the previous entry, Dracula died after being pushed into a pit conveniently filled with stakes, with the added help of Dr. Lorrimer Van Helsing (Cushing) using a shovel to push the stakes deeper into him, and him turning to ash on the spot.

 

This movie's aim is so low they don't even explain how Dracula gets resurrected from that outcome—he just shows up at the 31 minute mark of the movie as if nothing had ever happened. At this point, you'd think the man would learn to avoid anything sharper than a rubber ball!

The exploitation level is very high—so much so that Lee's Dracula is barely in it—and there's less of a Dracula plot and more of a spy-thriller aspect to it, as least initially, as an agent from MI6 escapes captivity while downstairs four prominent Englishmen are taking part in a ritual (presumably to revive Dracula but that runs counter to the timeline laid out in the movie) involving a naked blonde* and the blood of a chicken. It's a long ritual, judging by the simultaneous-event-cross-cutting, that the agent has time to escape, whisked to HQ and burbles a 30 minute tape record of his experience, then dies and the micro-film in his wristwatch camera gets developed by the time it's over.

 

By the time the movie is over, you'll realize that the 'satanic rites" opening and closing the films are irrelevant and Dracula has no vampire bride, making you wonder just what either of the titles had to do with the movie. Did I mention that, although the movie was released in Britain in 1973, it didn't get released in the U.S. until 1978? Not that it was particularly missed.

Anyway, MI6, being so efficient and all, determines they'll need outside help so they contact Inspector Murray "of the Yard" who helps identify the four big-shot Englishmen (one of them's a Nobel Prize winner in biology, but you'd never know it as he's played Freddie Jones in full "gibbering" mode!) and makes the leap to blood sacrifices in order for him to say "Blood? I know somebody who knows a thing or two about blood!"

Cue Peter Cushing as Professor Van Helsing! He agrees it's all pretty suspicious and as the biology genius is an old acquaintance of his, he goes off to visit him, while MI6 agent Torrence (William Franklyn), Murray and Van Helsing's granddaughter Jessica go out to where the dead agent was held captive to blunder about asking questions of whatever suspicious conspirator they can find. They find those, but they also find a coven of vampirettes in the basement/wine-cellar. Crikey, that sounds out-of-place!

Okay, everybody stumbles about, but the upshot is that Dracula has posed as a real estate developer (!) living in the penthouse of the high-rise built on the very spot where he died in the previous film. Living like Howard Hughes and amassing a fortune in downtown London, he has financed the creation of a  form of bubonic plague with enhanced virulency that he plans to unleash upon—dare I say it?—the world. It sounds exactly like a Bond-villain plot,** but Dracula isn't holding the world to ransom—he just wants to do it (BECAUSE he's Dracula!).

Oh, there's stakings, an electrocution, the stronghold being set on fire and Jessica unconscious on a sacrificial altar...again!...before the big fight between Dracula and Van Helsing, which ends with Dracula being caught in hawthorn bushes. Hawthorn bushes. Okay, Wikipedia says that works, folklorically—just like turning on the sprinkler system dispatches the vampirettes in the basement—but, damn!, dramatically, it's a bit underwhelming. Now, I could understand Dracula not having a weed-whacker yet as they'd only been invented in 1971, but...if the guy's so rich he can fund a bubonic plague program, why can't he afford a gardener? It would have kept him from getting stuck—and then staked—by Van Helsing in the end.

Thankfully, nobody built a high-rise on that patch of Earth, as there wasn't a sequel...not with Lee's Dracula, anyway. He wouldn't be back. Cause of death is officially hawthorn branches and multiple stake-wounds. But, I think that's a cover-up. Judging by The Satanic Rites of Dracula, he died of anemia.

* I remember seeing this on one of the Elvira presentations of horror movies and there's so much gratuitous nudity that at one point she interjects "Uh...what's our "blurring" budget on this one?"

 

** Lee would do that NEXT year as the villain in The Man with the Golden Gun.

Dracula A.D. 1972

Saturday is traditionally "Take Out the Trash" Day.

Dracula A.D. 1972 (Alan Gibson, 1972) Things were pretty darned weird in Merry Olde England back in the early 70's. There were the copy-cat "Clockwork Orange" crimes—allegedly—going on. And then, there was the thing with "The Highgate Vampire." Click on the link for the details, but it involved kids (probably inebriated or just "larking"), some disruptions of graves at Highgate Cemetary, reports of "spectral figures" and two determined publicity-seekers trying to make some sort of names for themselves. Names besides "nutters," that is.

But, the impetus for an "updated" contemporary Dracula film was the relative success of AIP's Count Yorga, Vampire released in 1970. Yorga was set in modern times, had ornate gothic furnishings pulled out of storage for atmosphere, and...pulchritude, something the M-G-M "Dark Shadows" films limited. There's always been predatory sex in the vampire films—you could say, it's in their blood—but Yorga laid it on a bit thick—it was originally envisioned as a soft porn film, which AIP objected to as most of its business came from drive-in theaters. Even after a toned-down filming, it still had to go through six passes from the MPA to get the desired GP rating.

This did not go unnoticed at rival Warner Brothers studio, which had a contract with London's Hammer Studios, who hadn't put out a Dracula movie since 1970. Plans were made to make a new Dracula film, this time—for the first time—set in contemporary times.

Kids. Jessica (Stephanie Beacham), the granddaughter of Professor Lorrimer Van Helsing (Peter Cushing, returning after a long absence from the family lineage), is hanging out with the wrong crowd. Her boyfriend, Bob (Pip Miller) is crushing with this weird character named Johnny Alucard (Christopher Neame, and I know, I know, you already know...) who boozes, drinks, smokes dope, goes to parties with bad rock-bands, and holds satanic rituals. Yes, he holds satanic rituals (which makes a little weed now and then sound therapeutic) in derelict churches. Of which there seem to be a lot in modern times. And as he calls out the spirits of the undead, he asks for volunteers for sacrifice. All I can say is that weed is really good because the most appropriately-dressed-in-black Laura Bellows (Caroline Munro) volunteers.

Bad move, Laura, despite getting some exclusive screen-time. Johnny puts Laura on the altar (always a bad sign!) fills a chalice with ashes (guess whose?), opens a vein and drips his blood into it. Now, the chalice fills up with enough blood to reach the brim, and Johnny Alucard should be passing out losing that much blood, but, no, he's alert enough to chew the scenery with his performance and pour the mixture (which looks like it came from Sherwin Williams) all over Laura, understandably freaking her out.

This is, of course, to mark her for the first victim of Dracula (Christopher Lee), who is revived by the ceremony...much to Alucard's surprise (but then, he might be a little woozy)...and sinks his teeth into Laura's neck, then dump the body at a construction site, where the local constabulary find her. Interesting that she hasn't turned into a vampire in the meantime. Most of the other kids will be turned into blood-suckers throughout the course of the movie, so why Laura doesn't is a curiosity.

Not that Dracula A.D. 1972 is a movie of any great consistency especially, or even a movie with any redeeming qualities at all...save for the performances of Lee and Cushing, who have the great professionalism to never take the movie less than seriously. It's more than a little dumb. Dracula's plan in this is to make Jessica--the last descendant of his arch-enemy, Van Helsing--into his living slave. Not that Van Helsing, who we've learned in a prologue was killed in an encounter with the Count a couple of centuries previously, is in any shape to care. But, it's up to her gramps, Professor Lorrimer Van Helsing, who has been asked by the police for help in the rash of recent vampire killings happening in London, to prevent her from suffering a fate was than death.

Really? Van Helsing has to spell it out for himself (or the audience?)

One suspects he wouldn't be too good at Wordle.

There are, of course, complications as Dracula turns Alucard into a vampire, who wastes no time in biting his pals. And Alucard is appointed point-man in dealing with the old man. But, Johnny's something of an idiotic narcissist...why else would he go by that name (not that Van Helsing is too quick in figuring it out).

One senses that the director is less concerned with showing off his star Christopher Lee

than Stephanie Beacham's breasts.

But, story-logic doesn't seem to be director Gibson's main concern. He seems to more concerned with rapid shooting and getting as much footage into the can. Then, you look at some of his shot choices, and his priorities seem to be in wedging in as much of his female co-stars' anatomies as he possibly can, even to the point of ridiculousness. One spends more time suppressing embarrassed giggles than horrified shivers. Prurient is the word for Dracula A.D. 1972. Prurient...and puerile.

Grandfather Van Helsing only thinks to cover her up until the END of the movie.

Caroline Munro, Stephanie Beacham, Marsha Hunt and Janet Key love the publicity.

But Christopher Lee does not look happy...at...all.

Dracula (1958)

Dracula (aka Horror of Dracula) (Terence Fisher, 1958) Jimmy Sangster's screenplay for the initial Hammer version of Dracula starts out much as Bram Stoker did—with an entry in the diary of Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen). Castle Dracula (in Klausenburg) is a good deal cleaner than previous domiciles (no cobwebs, no dust, but then the Count (Christopher Lee) does state his housekeeper is "away"), although it does an ever-present atmosphere of mist—one can even see Jonathan Harker's breath in his quarters.

 

But, Harker is not there to sell the place (as in the novel and so many versions). He announces that he is pleased to be accepted as the castle's "librarian" but he writes that he wants to "stop his reign of terror forever." You'd think, then, that he'd be a bit more wise to night-gowned beauties asking for help in the middle of the night, or that he might have come with holy water or a crucifix or a bible or some garlic of something. Or to choose his priorities on whom to stake a bit more wisely. 

Within days after Harker's arrival, Dr. Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) arrives at the Klausenburg Inn inquiring about Harker, and is stonewalled until he goes up to the castle. Upon entering the grounds, he sees a coach leaving in a big hurry, and investigating further, he finds two coffins in the basement, one holding a staked vampire woman turned old with age, and in the other, Jonathan Harker. Van Helsing makes quick work of him with a stake through his heart.

Returning to Karlstadt (Karlstadt?), Van Helsing informs the family of Harker's fiancee, Lucy (Carol Marsh), of the young man's death. Lucy has taken ill...with anemia...and her brother Arthur Holmwood (Michael Gough) and his wife Mina (Melissa Stribling), who rebuff the doctor despite his reputation as "a very eminent man." They choose to delay telling her the terrible news until she recovers. There's not much chance of that, as it turns out.

Van Helsing may be "very eminent" (as Stoker described him as a philosopher a "metaphysician") but he seems to have a weird specialty. We seem him dictating his thoughts on vampirism, and it gives us a veritable "Vampire Rulebook" for this film's iteration of the myth. He tells us that vampires are allergic to light (and that sunlight is fatal), that vampires are "repelled" by the odor of garlic, that the "power of the crucifix symbolizing the power of good over evil, protects the human being but exposes the vampire or victim when in advanced stages."

"Victims consciously detest being dominated by a vampirism but are unable to relinquish the practice, similar to addiction to drugs. Ultimately, death results from loss of blood, but, unlike normal death, no peace manifests itself for they enter into the fearful state of the Undead." Changing into bats or wolves is dismissed later as "a common fallacy." It's in the Stoker, but sometimes a vampire's weakness is actually budgetary.

That also may be why so many of the characters from the Stoker novel are missing (as they are in the stage play), or switched out. Lucy Winestra and Mina Murray are transferred to a more nuclear Holmwood family, Quincey Morris is sent to a farm, and Dr. John Seward's presence is minimal and there's no Renfield or mention of an asylum. Then, again, there's no transcontinental travel, either. Everybody stays on the continent. Stoker's novel is boiled down to the minimal, but in a different way than the Hamilton Deane/John L. Baldeston play (which was copyrighted and held by Universal). And, of course, it being Hammer, there are bit-pieces for character actors, some of which are rather comic.

The treatment of the Count is a bit different. Christopher Lee has 16 lines, all of them in the first fifteen minutes. The rest of the time, he is silent and menacing, baring his fangs and growling—it IS difficult to deliver dialogue when you're slurshing through fangs. There is no pretense that he is a nobleman, or even having the manners of a member of the upper class. He is a monster, a hunter, with no motivations other than to feed. And his close-ups are animalistic, with reddened eyes, wolfish fangs and without the thought of even wiping his mouth to take away the blood of his victims. But, despite that, there is a carnality to him that enflames the ladies (it is Hammer, after all) and makes them toss garlic, doff crucifixes and open balcony doors in lustful invitation to him.

There is also an overt physicality to this Dracula, as well, no doubt owing to the lack of dialogue. During the first confrontation between Harker and Dracula, Lee leaps over a large dining room table to attack Harker, at one point, running up stairs three at a time to make an escape, and, during the climactic confrontation, Van Helsing—or Cushing's stunt-double—goes full-on Douglas Fairbanks to rip down the drapes to let in the sun-light in order to reduce Dracula to ash. Talk about leaving a carbon foot-print!

Lee is quite amazing in the movie and makes a stark contrast to the cool, collected Cushing, but, the most remarkable performance belongs to Carol Marsh as the poor, unfortunate Lucy, who exhibits a wily lust before she is dispatched and then, abject terror when she is stopped from attacking her brother-in-law by a relentless Van Helsing (Marsh was also noticeable as "Rose" in Brighton Rock). She's quite amazing, especially considering the performances of Lee and Cushing, which could overshadow anyone, and which are considered—even without the benefits of vampirism—immortal.

Who's Whos

Dr. Who and the Daleks (Gordon Flemyng, 1966) One must admit: I came to the party late. I came to the party as an adult. I came to the party as an American. I came to the party post-Douglas Adams. What I knew about "Who" before that was a professional aside—I did sound design earlier in life and a lot of the BBC's licensed Sound Effects Library (from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop) had a LOT of Dr. Who effects with all sorts of titles like "Tardis Interior" and "Take Off" and "Dalek Base"—there were also lots of "Dr. Who" sound effects record albums cluttering the bins (back in "the day" of vinyl and record stores). In my sound design duties, I didn't use them much. They were primitive electronics using lots of reverb and "loop rings" and feedback and, frankly, I could do that myself. They were best used as "camp" and "humor" effects. They were "hokey," I snootily thought.

What I didn't know is that they were also beloved.

Oh, I got into it once it got rebooted in 2005, there had already been eight Doctors (not counting the subject of these films) and such as Stephen Moffat, Mark Gatiss, Neil Gaiman and (good lord!) Richard Curtis started to write them. The old shows—which a local PBS station runs ad infinitum—I never warmed to. But, then, I hadn't yet cracked the realization that a Dr. Who plot had to be something that a child might come up with for an afternoon's game, but laced with an adult's cultural knowledge.

There were two films made for the theaters, with slightly higher budgets—on film, on location, widescreen and in colour—and their stories were culled from the television series' highlights, but the dogma of Who was mostly ignored.

This Dr. Who (played in both films by a fussy Peter Cushing) was merely an eccentric inventor—not a Time Lord—very much Earth-bound and human, but could travel time and space by his marvelous transport The Tardis—police phone-box on the outside, large control room on the inside. He is joined on the Tardis' voyage by granddaughters Susan (Roberta Tovey), Barbara (Jennie Linden) and Ian Chesterton (Roy Castle), Barbara's beau. They find themselves on the planet Skaros (although it isn't named in the film) which has suffered an atomic war. The two warring parties were the Thals, humanoid creatures (with much make-up) living in the jungle, and the Daleks, a species that encase themselves in maneuverable metal housings to protect themselves from resulting radiation who live in a large city-complex.

Dr. Who and his companions—or as they function in the Who-niverse "exposition-receivers"—find an antidote to the radiation, and, visiting the city under the pretext of fixing a Tardis component, come to realize that the Daleks are not some poor little travelling versions of spam-in-a-can, but bent on eliminating the Thals and taking the planet for their own.

Excuse me. Not eliminate. But, "EX-TERMM-I-NAAATE".

The Daleks aren't exactly capable villains; you have to take for granted that the fearful reactions of our heroes are warranted. Oh, they threaten a lot in their ring-modulated voices (in English), but their arms are topped by a very clumsy double claw or, unimpressively, a plunger emanating fire extinguisher fumes. But, there are a lot of them and their hive-mind singularity of purpose gives them a Nazi-like implacability. But, they were popular with the TV series' young viewers, who were awed by the inhuman qualities of the Daleks.

The film is crudely done, and there are incidental little elements that make one roll one's eyes, but would energize a 6-year-old by letting them know they were smarter than the people on-screen. It was popular enough in Britain, and did even cause a stir in America. But, it was enough to encourage a sequel, also with Cushing.

Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (Gordon Flemyng, 1966) Dr. Who and Susan return, but, this time with the Dr.'s niece, Louise (Jill Curzon) and a hapless London bobby Tom Campbell (Bernard Cribbins), who stumbles into the Tardis after a botched robbery investigation and ends up a stowaway on a trip to the future, specifically the London of 2150. Seems like an innocent Wellesian thing to do...

But, emerging from the Tardis, they find London in ruins, with roving bands of rebels fighting an unseen occupying force, and roving bands of Robomen, ordinary Londoners captured and enslaved by the conquerors to root out any resistors.

It doesn't take long before the answer is revealed—a Dalek is rising out of the river Thames! The Daleks have invaded Earth. With the inevitable separation of the heroes, things start to look increasingly bleak: Tom and the Doctor are taken prisoner aboard a Dalek ship and threatened with being turned into Robomen! Susan and Louise are captured by resisters and held in the London Underground, where they learn that there's an imminent attack on the Dalek ship. Susan stays behind with the wheelchair bound Dortmun and the tramp Wyler, while Louise joins the attack. The three decide that their best use will be to travel to a rumored Dalek mining camp located in Bedfordshire...Susan leaves a scrawled chalk message on the door for her grandfather telling her where she's going.

"Meanwhile"...back on the Dalek ship, Tom and the Doctor are nearly turned into Robomen, a process that dresses them in black latex jumpsuits and clamps a motorcycle helmet with ill-fitting goggles on their heads while lights flash and their natural tendencies to "just go with it" are enhanced turning them into non-critical thinkers, conspiracy-theory "specialists" and "patriots" ready to subvert any system designed to create a civilized democratic society for one ruled by self-obsessed autocrats. Any six year old will recognize this as a metaphor for the rise of Nazism in Germany, but once puberty scrambles the hormones, one forgets this and confuses it with their right to cherish freedoms that make them appear more powerful than people who remember history.

Anyway, the "Underground resistors" storm the Dalek ship and rescue the Doctor and Tom from any further indoctrination and threat of prosecution. The Doctor leaves with another of the rebels, while Tom and Louise are stuck on the ship when it takes off and heads for the Dalek slave camp in Bedfordshire. The Doctor returns to the London Underground and decides to follow the leaving ship for its destination and completely misses Susan's note to him telling him where she's going, thus making every child in the audience slap their foreheads in frustration and wonder if the Doctor is such a good role-model to emulate.

So, at this point, everybody is at the Daleks' concentration camp with the collective objective of freeing their fellow Londoners and defeating the evil-saltshakers. Their weakness, it turns out, is linked to their ultimate plan of dropping a bomb into the Earth's core and replacing it with a mechanism to turn the Earth into a giant space-ship. However, The Doctor looking at the mine-shafts plans reveals that if they can somehow deflect the bomb to a shaft that is equidistant of Earth's magnetic poles, the resulting explosion would pull the metallic Daleks into Earth's core, crushing them like grapes and destroying them utterly.

And so, that is just what they do, crushing the Daleks, saving the Earth, and convincing British youngsters not to go into the mining industry. Good triumphs, the Tardis returns Tom to the point ten minutes before they initially picked him up, so that, knowing what had happened in the past, he can successfully apprehend the criminals he let escape the first time and allowing him a chance to guest-star in the TV series when it gets rebooted in the much-more-near-future. I'm sure there were some audience members who wish they had a Tardis so they could get the two hours they just spent back.

"EX-TERRRMM-I-NAAATE!"

One has to say that, however puerile and juvenile the whole thing is, it certainly looks better than the previous film, probably because the film-makers had a better idea of what London looked like after a blitz than they did an alien planet, and that Dalek ship actually looks pretty nifty. And there is one character who is particularly fascinating, and that is Brockley (played by Philip Madoc), a black marketeer who doesn't give a hoot what the struggle is about, he'll just use it to his advantage. The character is such a snake and the actor plays him so matter-of-factly that he stands out from the rest of the cast just for taking the role so seriously. He gets a lovely "that'll show 'im" death, as well.

Who-afficianados in "Whoville" tend to look askance at these films as "not-according-to-canon" and best left undiscussed like other humiliating embarrassments, such as "The Star Wars Holiday Special" and Marjorie Taylor Greene. But, still, it's Peter Cushing in an iconic role, which, like his turn as Sherlock Holmes, may not be as true as it could be, but is still a game "go" at it.  

"Okay, go back to your homes, everything's alright now, bye!"

From Beyond the Grave

Oh, that's right. October is "Hallowe'en Month." "Guess I best pay attention to Horror movies." 

From Beyond the Grave (Kevin Connor, 1974) It was not the best of times for the British film industry around the time this was filmed...but there were advantages. A cheap horror film, like this one, could always be made and because of the low overhead, often made money, even though times were tough. Plus, thanks to some industry-encouraging tax laws, even a film like this one could attract some very good talent, no matter how lurid the subject matter might be. 

From Beyond the Grave is a horror anthology film, collecting four tales under a central umbrella wrap-around story. All four parts were based on the work of British horror writer R. Chetwynd-Hayes, not exactly Edgar Allan Poe or H.P. Lovecraft or even Stephen King, but he had enough output with enough genuine creepiness that he made good fodder for this type of story.

The central conceit is a London hole-in-the-wall called "Temptations Limited"—"Offers You Cannot Resist," run by an elderly and deceptively frail proprietor (Peter Cushing). With one exception, the stories revolve around buyers who cheat the proprietor, but pay a price in the end.

-- "The Gatecrasher" Smarmy Edward Charlton (David Warner) buys an antique mirror from the proprietor, buts cons him into letting him have it a lower cost claiming it a forgery. Charlton, considers himself a high-roller and an amateur spiritualist, but he gets far more than he bargained for when the mirror reveals itself to be possessed by the spirit of Jack the Ripper (Marcel Steiner), who implores Charlton to murder so that he "can feed," which brings dire consequences to both victims and murderer.

-- "An Act of Kindness" Pity poor Christopher Lowe (Ian Bannen); he gets it from all sides: stuck in a lousy middle-management, too old to advance and too young to retire and in an abusive marriage with Mabel (Diana Dors) and a disrespectful son. The only respect he does get is from a matchstick salesman Jim Underwood (Donald Pleasance), veteran of "the war". Lowe tries to impress him that he's a vet, too, claims to have a medal—but resorts to buying one at Temptations Limited, even though he doesn't have the citation for it—and Underwood invites Lowe for dinner where he meet's Jim daughter, Emily (Angela Pleasance, daughter of Donald), who, frankly, is far too attentive to be comfortable—but, when she turns out to have occult powers, Lowe's life becomes more complicated by being made simpler.

-- "The Elemental" Different in tone from the other stories, as it is played for laughs more than chills. Ian Carmichael plays Reggie Warren, a well-to-do businessman and stuffed shirt who buys an antique snuff box after switching the price tag (the proprietor sends him off with a cheery "I hope you enjoy snuffing it!"). On his way, he's informed by the mad psychic Madame Orloff (Margaret Leighton, perfectly happy to play over-the-top) that he has an "elemental" on his shoulder and he should call if he needs her services. Well, Reggie goes home and his dog's gone missing, and his wife (Nyree Dawn Porter) has been attacked by some poltergeistial presence. Hilarity ensues, but not for Reggie.

-- "The Door" Well, not only does Temptations Limited sell mirrors, they also sell doors—ornate ones, and William Seaton (Ian Ogilvy) buys a rather sinisterly-carved one to shutter the pantry, a bitter over-the-top, at least in the opinion of wife Rosemary (Leslie Anne-Down). But, Seaton soon learns that the price for storing your dry goods could be your eternal soul, as passing through the door leads to another time and dimension controlled by the occultist, who had the door made, and that you may go in to get oatmeal, but you might leave your soul behind.

This was Kevin Connor's first directing gig—and he is still directing—won by his editing skills, which is more in abundance than his staging or framing. The film abounds with 1970's stylistics like hand-held shaky cams, and absurd distortions through fish-eye lenses, but every so often something stands out, whether it's the sheer creepiness of Angela Pleasance's performance or how the image in the mirror of "The Gatecrasher" sort of heaves into view creating a sense of dread. In anthologies the strongest story is usually the last one, but here, it's the first one (the placement is due to the protagonists in "The Door" being the only survivors of the movie because they didn't cheat the proprietor). It ultimately isn't much, but there's a lot of talent on display. Think of it as on a par with some good "Night Gallery" episodes.

And I know that "From Beyond the Grave" is a more grabber of a title, but the name of the film really should have been "Caveat Emptor."