The Vault of Horror (1973)

The Vault of Horror (1973, Roy Ward Baker)

Just as Britain's premier house of horror, Hammer Films, was entering the period of it's final decline in the early 1970s, a new challenger for the throne arose. This was Amicus Productions, founded in 1962 by two American screenwriters and producers, Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg. Beginning in 1965, with Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, Amicus focused on horror films, especially anthology film inspired by the 1945 British classic Dead of Night.

In 1972 the studio released it's best known title, Tales from the Crypt. Based upon the EC comic book of the same name, the movie was a huge hit, on both sides of the Atlantic. It was only natural, then, that it would be quickly followed up by a similar film, again sharing a title with a classic EC comic, The Vault of Horror.

The movie consists of five short stories, framed by five men who find themselves trapped in the basement of a building, and begin recounting their nightmares to each other. These range from a man who finds himself at dinner with the undead, to a starving artist with the power to kill through his art. The cast is impressive, and while the stories are, as with all such movies, uneven in quality, that unevenness is much less pronounced than is the norm, with the final tale being the weakest.

Speaking personally, I love these anthology films, also referred to as Portmanteau films. It's much easier to construct a short horror tale than a long one, and the story telling is often better. Though not as well known as the earlier Tales from the Crypt, I think it's the better film, and it's one of my favorites. Give it a try!