Tales from the Crypt

Five tourists lose their way in a catacomb and are met by a monk whose face is never seen. He tells each of them how they died, or how they are going to. Five stories, five punishments. The subject is not horror but getting what you have coming. In each section someone does something and the punishment fits the act directly; there is no coincidence in any of the stories, only accounting. The best known segment turns on a man killed on Christmas night, with a killer in a Santa suit moving around outside. The form is a short story collection; each part runs around fifteen minutes and goes hard for its ending. The Amicus studio worked this structure for years and carved out a place with it inside the genre. The source is the EC Comics of the fifties, shut down by the morality campaign of the era. The stories on screen were once the subject of an argument in America that went as far as prohibition. Freddie Francis directs. Joan Collins, Peter Cushing and Roy Dotrice lead the segments, and Cushing's is the most remembered piece in the film. Who it is for: viewers who like seventies British horror anthologies and the short story form. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a unified film; there is no connection between the sections and the quality is uneven.