It's Movie time!!!! 7 - No one remembers the original premise.

As I've been playing a lot of "Prison Architect" recently, it's become a necessity to have something on in the background while I wait for money to build up and/or for the inmates to kill each other.

                                                           (1977 Theatrical poster)

An embarrased looking Christopher Lee stars alongside an equally embarrased looking Robert Vaughn (although arguably Vaughns role is less embarrasing) in this B-move romp about an alien invasion.
The people of the planet Alpha, situated in the constellation Orion arrive in our solar system and begin abducting people to perform experiments on. The abductees are then returned to Earth, but as the Alpha people (who call themselves the Legion of the winged serpent) are powerful telepaths, the abductees have been implanted with a post hypnotic suggestion to commit suicide shortly after their return.
Professor Duncan (Vaughn) is a UFO researcher who takes an interest in the sudden spike in UFO sightings and abductions, and believes an invasion is coming, and he is right!.
The aliens leader Ramses (Lee) explains that their secret mission is to find a new homeworld for their people, as their solar systems star is about to go nova.
Earth suits the aliens needs, however as it is already occupied by humans, the Intergalactic league of races, represented mostly by large headed aliens originating from Zeta Reticuli, will oppose them, so Ramses must deal with them before he can put his evil plot to make all humans commit suicide, via the use of a telepathic dommsday weapon, into action.

Despite this film being obviously filmed on a low budget, it somehow manages to be enjoyable in a "I turned off my brain" sort of way. I quite liked the way the story included various bits and pieces from UFOlogy and stories from alledged abductees.



Overall - 7/10

                                                 (Theatrical poster for 1962 English dub)

 In the year 1985, glorious Communist revolution taken over world!, and with petty things such as capitalism put firmly in the past, mankind works toward make benefit for glorious planet Earth!.
During a project to irrigate the Gobi desert, an alien artifact is found, which proves that the Tunguska event was actually the result of an alien spacecraft crashing on Earth.
The worlds leading scentists find that the artifact contains some sort of message, and originated from the planet Venus, so, the scientists embark on a mission into space on the spaceship "Kosmostrator" to make contact with the Venusians in the hopes of establishing a peaceful relationship.....however, they get a bit more than they bargained for....

This film was made in East Germany in 1960, and thus the original version contains much more communist related material than the english dub does, however the film itself is a very interesting one, albeit somewhat scientifically inacurrate and fantastical.
Even amongst all this communism and speculative fiction, the films main message is an anti war one, told via a simple "fantastic adventure" type storyline. 

Overall - 7/10

                                                               (2014 Theatrical poster)

David is a film archivist who finds that his wife is having an affair, his initial reaction is one of anger but he seemingly refrains from carrying out his violent urges and returns home to his son Billy.
In the course of his work he finds out that the house he lives in was connected with some unsolved murders for 100 years ago. When his wife doesnt return hime, he calls the police, and, sure enough, her body is later found at the bottom of the local canal.
Overwrought with grief, he embarks on a series of erratic behaviours, including claiming to have seen ghosts in the house and at the canal, and blames his wifes death on the haunting.
The question is, was it ghosts who killed his wife?, or is he insane?

Yeah, this isn't a half bad film, albeit a little slow paced, and figuring out what has actually happenned keeps you guessing right to the end. 

Overall - 7/10

                                                               (1996 Video release)

This failed TV pilot takes place in some unspecified future time where the Earth has become so overpopulated that the human race has began reaching out into space and colonising planets.
Several years before the film begins, one of the first colonies, Cynosura, declared its independance from Earth and began its own aggressive expansion (we are helped to realise that the Cynosurans are definitely the baddies because they dress in black uniforms and behave like nazis, whereas the good guys generally wear white or blue uniforms).
The story introduces us to a group of six eager space cadets, who are assigned to the Democratic Republic of Earth corvette "Surprise" for their training cruise. The cadets are drilled by a tough veteran space captain and his equally tough executive officer, however when they begin what they think is a training exersize in the Maraz system, they find themselves under attack by a Cynsuran attack fleet, which has been sent to exterminate the colony on Maraz so they can claim the planet for themselves.
The Captain and the XO are killed in the battle, and it is left up to the cadets ingenuity to defeat the bad guys and save the colony.

I can see why this TV pilot failed, as it borrows a hell of a lot from other sci-fi shows of the time, and has a lot of mid 90s cliches. the special effects are of poor quality for the time, and the acting is terrible, with the good guys being whiter than white saintly figures and the bad guys being little more than comic book villains.
The series itself, had it been picked up, could have gone on to be an interesting drama along the lines of something like "Space: Above and beyond", but only if it shed its "young adult" type of writing style, but alas, the pilot failed to impress, and the series never happenned. 

Overall - 5/10

Its movie time!!!! 6 - The Rebooted Sequel.

Films, yeah, theyre good for passing at least 90 minutes of time. Heres some more time fillers I've watched since the last installment....

                                                             2013 Theatrical Poster

 Some bored rich people indulge in their hobby of kidnapping women of the lower classes and making them fight to the death for their entertainment. Off screen, 46 of the 49 "competitors" have already been eliminated from this years games, leaving the final 6 to bitchslap each other into oblivion in return for the last woman standing being allowed to go free.
Yeah, er, not exactly an original story, as it ends up being pretty much the same as any "fighting tournament" type film youve ever seen, and the twist of having it be an all female fighting tournament doesn't really add much new stuff, other than making the "not-fighting" scenes include lots and lots of fee-fee related stuff.
The evil rich people are straight out of a comic book, being OTT in their wickedness, the successful female fighters form the stock characters of "the virtuous hero", "the bloodthirsty baddie", "the sweet innocent type" and so on and so forth, lots of violent (and somewhat physically impossible for the average person) finishing moves and the films ending, which involves yet another plot twist, is fairly predictable.

I dunno, for a bit of no brainer time wasting blood and guts action, its not a bad film, but as a groundbreaking piece of cinematic action, it falls over several hurdles before it limps over the finishing line.

Overall - 6/10

                                                                1971 Theatrical poster

Many thousands of years ago, the evil witch-queen, Tera, was drugged into a state of suspended animation by a group of priests while she lay in her sarcophagus, practicing her evil magiks. The tomb was sealed and her right hand, after being severed from her body, is thrown to the jackals to prevent her from dying and entering the afterlife. Unfortunately for the priests, the hand is still alive, and manages to escape.
In the present day, a group of archaeologists unearth the tomb. Breaking its seals, they enter and speak the name of the queen, whose name has been purged from history, save for one forgotten carving on the tomb wall, which had not been scrubbed off by some incompetant scribe. They open the sarcophagus, only to find Teras perfectly preserved body inside, still breathing and with blood flowing from the stump of her right wrist.
Years later, the lead archaeologists daughter has grown to become the spitting image of Queen Tera, and she finds she is involved in a plot to ressurect the queen, but for good or evil?.

This is pretty much your standard Hammer Horror type film, but not to the standards of either the Dracula, Frankenstein or even Hammers own "Mummy" films. The extremely attractive Valerie Leon plays a dual role as Tera and Margaret, and genuinely pulls off her role very well.
The story is a little "ho-hum" though, but not by any means boring.

Overall - 8/10

                                                              1972 Theatrical Poster

Following on from the BBC TV series of the same name, "Doomwatch" recieves its own feature film (a common practice at the time).
Dr. Del Shaw from the "Department for the observation and measurement of scientific work", better known as "Doomwatch", arrives in the remote island community of Balfe.
Originally tasked with compiling a report on the enviromental damage sustained in the area following a recent oil spillage, Dr. Shaw becomes suspicious when he sees severely deformed people in the otherwise quiet and somewhat backward village, and locals explanations about inbreeding stop being convincing after a few incidences of people becoming violent and irrational, also doesn't help their case when some dead bodies start turning up.
Could an old military waste dumping ground out at sea hold the key?......maybe.

This is a pretty run of the mill "science gone wrong" type of story, but what makes this films premise different is that it doesnt feel the need to go OTT with special effects and science fiction explanations as to why things are happenning, althouh I'd wager if the film makers had a larger budget they'd probably have liked to jazz the film up a bit (NOTE - the original TV series was notorious for having bargain basement special effects, as were numerous BBC programs at the time).
That said, this films very simple cinematograhy and easy to understand mystery/thriller type plot makes for good viewing, even if it looks dated in the modern age of lens flare and CGI explosions.

Overall - 8/10

Gorefest - Men Behind The Sun (1988)

If you didn't already know, World War 2 wasn't the most pleasant of times to live in, for every rendition of "We'll Meet Again", there are 10 examples of people being torn limb from limb, for no better reason other than someone just felt like doing it. War is a horrible thing, where the morals of man take second place to violent gratification.

Men Behind The Sun tells the undeniably true story of once such instance of morals becoming fluid during wartime.

Released in 1988, this Hong Kong/Chinese co production tells, albeit in abridged and, surprisingly, sanitised form, the story of Unit 731, one of many special military units formed during World War 2 and tasked with finding better ways to kill people.

The film itself caused some controversy on its release, with the Japanese government protesting to the Chinese government about the film, saying that it represented both an embellishment and an unrealistic portrayal of events, however the film makers refused to listen to the protests, stating that "history is history", part of a quote which is cited at the beginning of the film.

The story itself follows a group of young Japanese military recruits, all of whom have been conscripted into the army youth corps and seconded to field studies with Unit 731, a top secret unit based in the captured territory of Manchuria on the Chinese mainland.
Another subplot runs parallel to the main one showing the problems that the camps commanding officer, Shiro Ishii has upon returning to the command he was previously stripped of, due to other ambitious officers telling tales behind his back.

On their first day, all the boys are sworn to secrecy, and are introduced to the camps real work ("officially", the camp is a logging camp, which doubles as a field hospital) which focuses on finding a way to manufacture a strain of bubonic plague that is much more deadly than normal strains, and then finding a method of delivering it to a target effectively. To this end, prisoners, referred to as "logs" in keeping with the cover story that the camp is used as a lumber mill (historical note - experimental units such as Unit 731 also used other names for prisoners, such as "monkeys", firstly to cover up how many people had been killed in experiments, but also to fulfil the cultural mindset of being discourteous to an enemy that had allowed itself to be captured).

Over the course of the film, various experiments on humans are shown, ranging from experiments where peoples flesh is frozen to test possible treatments for frostbite, to vivisections on live humans (One such scene caused outrage as it appeared to be footage from a real autopsy, however it was later proven to be very good and convincing special effects) , and to people being injected with infected blood in order to stockpile the deadly strain of bubonic plague they are tasked with creating.

The film itself consists of various scenes showing atrocities, strung together with the developing plot and the passage of time showing the run up to the end of the war in the pacific, with the group of conscript boys either embracing the horror, or becoming sickened by it.
The film is very well made, however the subject matter and scenes of depravity depicted on screen are very disturbing, so those who find that sort of thing distasteful should definitely not view this film, being as that no punches are pulled in the film, and, as it so often plays out in real life, the "bad guys" do not receive a comeuppance in some ironic manner, nor at any time do any of the main "bad guys" show any kind of emotion or remorse for anything that they do, no matter how gruesome or depraved.

This is a good film, and an often ignored part of world history, especially where world war 2 is concerned as most "atrocities" are usually linked with the Nazis treatment of people in Europe.

Film Review:- The Car (1977)

"The Car" is a 1977 horror/thriller film, playing on the myth of "the devils rider", which has popped up before in various forms of storytelling since the middle ages.

Set in a backwater town named "Santa Ynez" in Utah, the films plot revolves around the sudden appearance of a mysterious black car which kills several people by running them over.
Local policeman Captain Wade Parent ( James Brolin ) tries to solve the mystery, which at first the police put down to the work of a maniac, however as the film pans out, it turns out to be a much more sinister threat than a simple psycho murderer. The film also stars a very young looking Ronny Cox as a bible thumping deputy who struggles with alcoholism, as well as a whole host of other people who I've never heard of.


The film itself was poorly received by critics on first release, citing bad acting, poor scripting and dodgy effects (even though there arent many effects on show in this film, and even then the quality of them isnt bad compared to some films of the time with much larger budgets ).
Over time though, this film has gathered a bit of a cult following, and I have yet to see many examples of other films like it, save for the awful "Maximum Overdrive", which is a shame really because its a really good basic idea for a storyline.

On a side note, the Car featured in the film was a prop created especially for this film by famed Hollywood car mod guru George Barris, and when you first see it it really does look menacing, although the film uses the old 50's B movie cliche of keeping the audience from seeing the bad guy/monster in full until half way through the story.

Nonetheless, despite its original critics moaning about crap acting and campiness, "The Car" is a pretty good no brainer watch, although I'd hardly refer to it as a "horror" film now, but still its a good way of spending 90 minutes watching some good, old fashioned honest entertainment without any hidden subtexts  etc.

I give it 3 skid marks out of 5

Book Review:- Strange Playgrounds (2013)

I’ll be the first to admit that the horror genre is not my cup of tea, having tried and failed several times in the past to enjoy the scribblings of King, Lovecraft, Koontz etc., I’ve mostly resigned myself to giving up on finding anything in the genre that I can find enjoyable.

I don’t know why this is, could be because I’m fairly desensitised to shock, could be because when I’m reading the books I have problems with suspension of disbelief, or it could be that I can usually figure out what is going to happen after only reading a few chapters, thus the only enjoyment I usually get from them in that instance is proving myself right, and occasionally being surprised when I find I’ve made a mistake (which doesn’t happen too often).

So, back on subject, a friend of mine by the name of George Daniel Lea recently had his first book published, and after seeing the time and effort he has poured into it over the past 18 months or so, I decided to give it a go, the end result of his efforts being the aforementioned “Strange playgrounds”.

Strange Playgrounds is a collection of short stories (although it could be argued that some of them are closer to being novellas) concentrating on the darker side of human nature, specifically obsessions, deviances and lusts.

The stories themselves are written with a number of influences, most notably the works of Clive Barker but also showing the subtle influences of writers such as H.P Lovecraft and Bram Stoker, although a couple of the stories would seem more at home as being described as being influenced by TV shows such as The Twilight Zone and/or The Outer Limits.

To classify this book as simply being a “horror” novel would do it a grave disservice (pardon the pun), as it is

Many old clichés of the horror genre are given a new twist, including new ways of looking at vampire and werewolf mythology, as well as one story which bears some of the hallmarks of being a rather nice blend of cyberpunk and psychological horror.

Unfortunately though, that said, the stories themselves do suffer from one fatal flaw.

In many of the stories, the author explores the depths of human depravity quite well, but many readers will almost certainly be put off by the large amount of sexual content, particularly of the homoerotic kind, which, and I’m going to be honest, I did find somewhat tiresome after a while, especially so in some of the stories where it had an almost “tacked on” feel, and offered no real benefit to the plot development as a whole.

While the author himself is openly homosexual (of which I have no objection to or opinion on, before anyone starts) I do feel that a lot of the unnecessary sexual content could be expunged and the storylines, as brief as they are, would suffer no detriment.

That said, the prose itself does a wonderful job of being very descriptive where it needs to be, leaving the reader to fill in certain blanks as they please, but not so much as it makes you feel like you’re the one doing all the work.

So, to sum up, Strange Playgrounds isn’t half bad for the debut publication from a new author, and although it isn’t really my cup of tea, it will almost certainly appeal to fans of this particular sub-genre of horror, but I would not recommend it to those of a nervous disposition, or for the easily offended.

God Only Knows!:- The Pit and The Pendulum (1991)

"The Pit and The Pendulum" (also released for a short time under the title of "The Inquisitor"), is a 1991 adaptation of Edgar Allan Poes short story of the same name.
Directed by Stuart Gordon, this film is a closer adaptation of the original story than the classic 1961 adaptation starring Vincent Price, although the film does incorporate elements of other stories by Poe, most notably "The Cask of Amontillado".

The year is 1492, and the Spanish City of Toledo is in the grip of terror. Friar Tomas de Torquemada (Lance Henriksen), the Grand Inquisitor, leads a holy mission to rid Spain of all sinners and heretics, which he and his cronies approach with murderous and sadistic glee.
The opening scene features Torquemada directing his henchmen to open the tomb of a long dead nobleman, whose dessicated corpse is then informed it has been found guilty of heresy and is sentenced to receive 20 lashes. once the sentence has been carried out, the bones are ground up and Torquemada has them placed in an egg timer. When he informs the noblemans wife that due to her deceased husbands supposed heresy, their fortune and lands are being confiscated by the church, she denounces him as a thief, which earns both her and her children a trip to the inquisitions torture chambers.

Later, as Torquemada presides over the noble womans execution, a young woman in the crowd begs him to show mercy, and as soon as he sees her, Torquemada becomes enthralled by her beauty, which leads him to have her arrested for witchcraft. Over time, Torquemada finds himself becoming more and more lustful towards her, so he offers her  a bargain, if she will submit to his lustful desires, he will release her husband.

Throughout the film, Torquemada is seen dabbling with a design for a new torture device, the eponymous "Pit and the Pendulum", consisting of a razor sharp blade which swings from a pendulum and slowly lowers down to slice a victim positioned below it in two, and a pit hidden under a trap door below the victim, which opens to reveal the pit is filled with spikes.
Torquemada explains that he requires the creation of new and more vicious torture devices as people become used to the same tortures, so therefore he has to make sure that the threat of torture remains terrifying to sinners and heretics.

Co stars in this film include Oliver Reed, making a cameo appearance as a cardinal sent by the Pope to investigate the rumours that Torquemadas tortures are becoming too depraved for the Vatican to stomach, and Jeffrey Combs as  Francisco, a cleric in the employ of the Inquisition who takes some pleasure in watching others tortured and killed.

The film is a character driven piece of supernatural horror, although there are elements of dark humour in there, one particularly chucklesome example of this is when a witch is being taken to execution and Francisco apologises to her that they didnt have time to torture a full confession out of her before she was executed.

Although little more than a "direct to video" film, which never had a cinema release proper (it was shown at a few film festivals), and suffers from some bargain basement special effects, it is nonetheless a very good film, with Henriksen putting in a brilliant performance as the fanatical and evil Torquemada.

I give it 8 out of 10 sacrificial lambs.

Amicus Horror Anthologies - From Beyond The Grave (1974)

During the 60s and 70s, British film makers Amicus productions made a series of films containing several short horror stories, linked by a framing story.
Starring many big names (for the time), these low/medium budget films told several stories mainly concerning ghosts and the supernatural in a typically British way, and usually featured some sort of twist ending.

From Beyond the Grave was the penultimate film in this series, which was release din late 1974.

Framing Story
"Temptations Ltd" is a poky little backstreet curiosity shop in which the owner, Peter Cushing ,claims to make customers "Offers they cannot resist"..... 

Story #1 "The Gatecrasher"
Eddie Charlton (David Warner ) enters the shop and spies an antique mirror that tickles his fancy. The owner says the price for it is £250, but Eddie lies and says that he is an antiques dealer and can recognise a modern reproduction when he sees one, and offers £25, which the owner reluctantly accepts.
Eddie hangs the new mirror in pride of place in his home, and loudly boasts to his friends about swindling the old man. One of his friends suggests that the mirror looks like it belongs in a mediums parlour, and the should hold a seance, which Eddie says ia a marvellous idea.
During the seance, a couple of weird things happen, like the candle on the table begins shooting out a long blue flame, but nothing really horrible happens, except to Eddie, who experiences a vision of a bearded man wearing very old style clothing attacking him with a knife in a wood, Eddie comes round screaming as the lights are switched on.
That night, while Eddie is alone, a ghostly voice calls him to the mirror, and when he looks into it, a face appears and demands that he feed it, entranced, Eddie goes out and hires a prostitute, who he brings back to his flat. As she is having a drink, the mirror commands him to kill her, which he does.
Eddie wakes up with a start, thinking it was all just a dream, but then he finds that his clothes and the sofa are covered in blood.
The following night, the mirror demands to be fed again, Eddie tries to refuse, but the mirror uses its power to try and compel him to kill one of his friends, he refuses to do this and silently agrees to kill someone else. He asks it how many more it wants dead, and it simply answers that it will keep asking until it is "fulfilled".
Eddie picks up a woman in a bar and kills her in front of the mirror, he demands to know why the mirror wants him to kill, and it tells him that long ago he gave his sacrifices, and now it is his turn to give his. Eddie wakes up again and finds himself covered in blood, but this time he is looking very ill. as the mirror is telling him it will soon be time for him to stop the killing, he smashes it. His telephone rings and his frind asks him if he is ok, he says he is, but then when he looks up, he sees that the mirror has repaired itself, and it demands that he kill his friend again, this time, Eddie is in no shape to resist, so he invites her over.
When she comes, Eddie refuses to answer the door, but the mirror commands him to, he tries to refuse, as he likes this girl, so the mirror tells him to find someone else for him. Eddie tells her to go home.
Downstairs, Eddies neighbour, Mr. Jefferies, is reading a bedtime story to his cat when blood starts dripping from the ceiling. He goes upstairs and complains about the noise and the mess Eddie has been making over the past few days, but Eddie slams the door in his face and checks the bodies he has hidden under the floorboards. Mr. Jefferies hammers on the door so Eddie lets him in, then kills him.
The ghost in the mirror manifests itself in physical form, and explain that now it has been fed enough, but one more sacrifice must be made so he can be truly free to join the other immortals. He takes Eddies knife, and asks him to throw himself on it, which Eddie does without hesitation, killing himself in the process.

Years pass and the mirror sits on the wall while the flat has many different tenants, until one day, a young couple are having a party, and one young woman suggests that the mirror looks like it belongs in a mediums parlour and that they should hold a seance, the male host says that is a marvellous idea, and a seance is held, during which, Eddies ghostly face appears in the mirror.....

The owner of the shop shakes his head as he watches Eddie walk away with his new mirror, while outside, a shifty looking man hangs around in the street as though he is waiting for something.
Christopher Lowe (Ian Bannen ) walks up and starts looking at some medals the owner has on display, which causes the shifty man to walk off....

Story #2 "An act of Kindness"
Christopher Lowe is a boring man with a boring life. He is stuck in a middle management admin job that he hates, and his wife (Diana Dors ) is constantly nagging at him and belittling him in front of their young son, who also gives him no respect. One day while on his way home from work, he buys a pair of shoelaces from a peddler (Donald Pleasence ) after seeing him displaying a sign saying he is an ex-serviceman who fought in World War 2. Over dinner, his wife gives him a taste of her sharp tongue, saying that when she first met him he was a Sergeant in the army pay corps with a soft job and a civilian future, but now he is a boring little man with a crap job who doesnt earn much money. This causes Lowe to storm out childishly.
The next day, he strikes up a conversation with the peddler, and lies and tells him he was an officer in an infantry regiment, he even goes back to Temptations ltd and steals a distinguished service cross in order to impress the peddler, when the owner notices the medal missing, he simply tuts and says "naughty naughty!" The peddler, being suitably impressed, invites him to his home for a meal and a chat, which he happily accepts just so he can get away from his wife for a while.
At the peddlers home, he introduces himself as "Jim" and his daughter as "Emily" (played by Pleasences real life daughter Angela), and they sit down to have a nice, but somewhat awkward chat, where Emily recites passages from books she has memorised, albeit some rather strange and out of context passages of no relevance to the conversation.
Weeks pass, and Lowe spends more and more time round at Jims house, lying and saying he is working overtime whenever she asks where he has got to. He gives Emily a gift of a fake gold watch, which pleases her immensely, and admits that he is unhappy with his wife, as she spends most of her time playing bingo and gossiping with her friends instead of doing her wifely duties.
some time later, Emily appears in Lowe and his wifes bedroom as they are sleeping, and, while wearing a black veil, she produces a knife and makes as though she is going to stab the wife, but she wakes up screaming and says she has had  abad dream, Emily is nowhere to be seen.
Lowe is having dinner with Jim and emily one night when Jim apologises and says he must leave early as he is meeting up with some old friends for a drink, and that Emily should be more than able to entertain him. Lowe is happy at this news as he has secretly fallen for Emilys rather strange beauty and creepy charms. As he eats the meal she has prepared for him, Emily walks around the flat, singing a very strange and discordant song, when he enquires about the song, she begins telling him he is a lonely man, and that his wife is not a wife to him, and that she wishes to serve him, and will do anything he commands her to.
Lowe wakes up in bed after having sex with Emily, he quickly dresses and follows her through to the lounge, where she lights a candle and produces a wax effigy of his wife, made using hair clippings and blood she had secretly gathered from his wife. She holds a knife to the effigies throat and asks Lowe if he wants her to finish it, when he refuses, she explains that every day they are still married his life will become more miserable, as she will not improve with age. Thinking its all just a bit of a game, he orders her to do whatever she wants, so she stabs the figure, causing blood to drip from the figures mouth.
Lowe is horrified and rushes home, to find that his wife is indeed dead, stabbed in the throat by a woman dressed in black. The doorbell rings, and Jim and Emily enter uninvited dressed in wedding garments, Jim salutes Lowe, and a wedding march begins playing.
Emily and Lowe marry, and on their wedding day, they celebrate with champagne, Lowe tells Emily to cut the wedding cake, and she asks if that is an order, to which he jokingly says, yes, she then asks Jim and Lowes son if they order it too, and they both say yes, so she takes a knife, but instead of cutting the cake, she chops down on the groom effigies head. Lowe collapses on to the table, blood gushing from a severe and fatal head wound.
Jim then says to Lowes son that they always answer childrens prayers, in one way or another....

The shop owner stands looking out of his shop window, and notices the shifty man still hanging around outside. The shifty man makes to enter the shop, but turns away as Reggie Warren comes walking down the street and enters the shop.

Story #3 "The Elemental"
Reggie Warren is a somewhat pompous businessman, when he enters the shop and finds it seemingly deserted, he opens one of the cabinets and looks at an antique silver snuff box, quickly replacing it when he sees the price tag of £40. He looks at another that has a price tag of £5, and quickly swaps the two tags over. the shop owner appears and asks if he can help him, to which Warren replies that he is looking for a snuff box, and he has his eye on one in particular (the £40 one). The owner gets the box out of the cabinet and checks the price, which now says £5, so warren agrees to buy it, even managing to get the owner to drop the price to £4. Pleased with his purchase, Warren bids the shop owner good day, and the shop owner says he hopes Warren enjoys snuffing it.
On the train home, Warren is set about by a dotty old woman who tells him he has a nasty looking elemental sat on his shoulder, this particular one is unusual because although it is sexually frustrated and greedy like most elementals, this one is willing to kill to get what it wants. Warren doesnt believe such rubbish, but the woman, who introduces herself as Madam Orloff, "Clarvoyant Extrraordinaire!", insists that he takes her card, as he will more than likely have need of her services soon.
At home, Warren notices that all of a sudden his dog becomes hostile towards him, and, while talking with his wife, she suddenly shouts at him for hitting her, even though he was nowhere near her.
that night in bed, his wife complains that he is holding her hand too tight, and that he needs to cut his nails, even though he isnt touching her, she then begins to choke, as though something is strangling her, which she assumes was him.
Realising they have a serious problem, Warren calls Madam Orloff, and she comes straight away.
Seeing that the elemental has grown, and intends to take over Warrens body, Madam Orloff says they will need to exorsize the beast immediately, so, to wit, she gets Warren to sit in a chair and begins chanting various ridiculous verses, which she says may seem unusual but they help her to focus her psychic powers.
As the exorsism goes on, the house erupts into chaos, with winds randomly blowing through the doors and windows and things moving and exploding all around them. Mid way through the exorsism, Madam Orloff requests a glass of whisky, and while his wife fetches it, she gives him a warning that his wife is the sort of person who will attract evil spirits like a magnet. The exorsism is eventually successful and the elemental leaves Warrens body, so madam Orloff leaves after being in the house for less than 10 minutes and demanding an enormous fee for it, but nontheless Warren says he feels much better.
After tidying the house up, and the dog returning to them, Warren and his wife settle down for a celebratory drink, but are disturbed by an ominous banging sound from upstairs, which puts the willies up both of them.
As he goes to investigate the sounds, a strange wind knocks Reggie down the stairs, causing him to black out.
When he comes to, he finds his wife standing over him glaring, he asks if she is alright, and she says, in a deep and other worldly sounding voice that he "denied her life", before she beats him to death with the fire poker and then leaves the house laughing.

The shop owner lights his pipe, and notices the shifty man still hanging around outside, this time, the man is looking extra fidgety, and fiddles with an iron bar that he has tucked up his sleeve. As he crosses the road to enter the shop, he bumps into Will Seaton (Ian Ogilvy ) as he too makes his way into the shop. The shifty man quickly runs away....

Story #4 "The Door"
Will tells the shop owner he has his eye on an antique door that he has in, and the owner explains that it is a very old antique that he rescued form an old house that was being demolished. He tells him the price for the door is £50, but Will says all he can afford is £40, the shop owner agrees to sell it him and takes his name and address, before putting the money in the till, which he leaves open, displaying that it is full of cash, while he goes through the back to get Bill a receipt. As Will leaves the store, The owner begins to slowly count the money in the till.
The door is delivered to Wills house, where he tells his wife he intends to redecorate his study and replace the door to the stationary cupboard with the antique one he bought, his wife wonders what such a grand old thing would have been the door to, which she eventually speculates that it was a big old fashioned room, which was all painted blue.
The door is put in place, and while admiring it, Will notices that the door appears to have blood stains on it, but it soon comes off when he cleans it.
That night, Will feels the sudden urge to walk up and open the door, which when he does, is surprised to see that instead of being his stationary cupboard beyond it, there is a grand old fashioned blue room.
He enters and explores the room, finding firstly a painting on the wall depicting a man wearing what appears to be a civil war era cavalier costume, and secondly what appears to be a large leather bound journal of some kind. He is about to read from the book, when he is scared off by the sound of approaching footsteps from one of the rooms internal doors. He leaves quickly and slams the door behind him, but then when he reopens it, he finds his stationary cupboard has reappeared.
His wife says he is mad when he tells her about it, but that night while Will is working, the door opens by itself, once again leading to the blue room, this time, he makes straight for the book and begins reading.
The book is entitled "An experiment in darkness" by "Sir Michael Sinclair".
From reading the book, Will finds that the room was created using evil magic by Sir Michael Sinclair in 1683, a time when if anyone of the lower classes was caught using or even speaking about magic, they would be burned at the stake for witchcraft, but he, as a nobleman and friend of the king, was immune to such punishment. The book goes on to explain that the room, and thus Sinclair himself, will exist forever, so long as the spell which keeps the room in existence is maintained by offering a blood sacrifice every so often to the door, which Sinclair prefers to be a woman, as their life essence is more potent.
Will flees when he hears Sinclair approach, but runs into his wife, who has come to see what is going on. Sinclair himself emerges from the doorway and grabs the woman, challenging Will to follow him, as "two souls are better than one". Will grabs an axe and begins smashing the door with it, each stroke causing Sinclair pain and the room to be damaged in some way. When Sinclair appears incapacitated, Will rushes in to rescue his wife, but Sinclair stops him and wrestles him to the ground. Will tells his wife to use the axe to break the door, which she does, eventually causing Sinclair himself to collapse. Will grabs the axe and smashes the door off its hinges, which causes the room beyond to totally collapse, and Sinclair to rot away to dust.

At the shop, the owner finishes counting the money in the till, and is happy that Will didnt steal any after all.
The shifty man finally enters the shop, closing the door queity as he does, and he finds the owner loading a pair of flintlock pistols with live ammunition. The owner asks him to hold one of the pistols while he loads the other, but once it is loaded, the shifty man grabs it and demands the owner hand over all of his money. The owner refuses to co operate and begins advancing on the would be robber meanacingly, so he opens fire, but none of his shots cause the owner any harm. Backing off in terror, the shifty man falls into an iron maiden which closes in on top of him. the shop owner then sits down on top of it and calmly lights his pipe and says 2the love of money is the root of all evil". The shop door opens, and the owner welcomes the new customers, saying that he has something for everyone, but, theres a free novelty surprise with every purchase........



  

Amicus Horror Anthologies - Vault Of Horror (1973)

During the 60s and 70s, British film makers Amicus productions made a series of films containing several short horror stories, linked by a framing story.
Starring many big names (for the time), these low/medium budget films told several stories mainly concerning ghosts and the supernatural in a typically British way, and usually featured some sort of twist ending.

The sixth of these films was 1974's "Vault of Horror", which contained a mix of stories from the "Tales from the crypt" and "Vault of Horror" comics.

Framing Story
Five men meet as they descend in a lift ( Daniel Massey , Terry-Thomas , Curd Jurgens , Michael Craig and Tom Baker ), which they are expecting to take them to the ground floor, however something goes wrong and they find themselves deposited in one of the buildings sub basements. Finding the room they end up in to be well furnished with chairs and drink, they assume that it is some sort of gentleman's club and make themselves at home while they wait for assistance to arrive. They begin talking to pass the time, and eventually the conversation comes around to the subject of dreams, horrible ones in particular. One by one, the men recount their tales....

Story #1 "Midnight Mess"
 Harold Rodgers (Massey) has hired a shady private detective (Mike Pratt ) to find his sister Donna (played by Daniel Masseys real life sister Anna Massey ) . Upon handing over the information and demanding payment, the detective is killed by Rodgers.
Rodgers travels to meet with his sister, finding her living in an out of the way village, where as soon as he gets there, a local warns him to get inside as it will be dark soon. Rodgers ignores the friendly warning and goes to get something to eat in a local restaurant, which he finds almost deserted when he enters. He asks for the menu, but is told that the place is closing for the night, as "they come out in the dark".
Rodgers leaves in disgust and makes for his sisters address, she isnt pleased to see him but invites him in anyway. He explains that he has been searching for her for a long time, and says he just wants to see her. She says his intentions are nothing of the sort and all he is after is her money. He asks why she would hide away in a place like this where everyone is afraid of the dark, but she explains that thus far, 17 people have been found with all their blood drained from them. Donna asks once again for him to tell her his reasons for wanting to see her, and he explains that their father died four weeks ago and left everything to her in his will, and so long as she is alive, she is a rich woman. He then produces a knife and quickly kills her in a flurry of crazed stabs.
As he stands outside her house, laughing at his good fortune, he notices a group of people entering the restaurant that was closed only a few minutes ago, so, now hungrier than ever, he decides to try his luck there again, this time finding the place bustling with customers.
The waiter recommends the special of the day so he orders it, noticing that everyone around him seems to be enjoying their meals.
The waiter brings him an aperitif, which he believes is tomato juice, but he sends it back after not enjoying the taste, so he is presented with his soup course, which again he remarks to the waiter that its flavour is unusual. The waiter asks him how he would like his "roast clots", rare, medium or well done, he asks what the waiter means, and is told that he means roast blood clots. Rodgers suddenly realises that his "soup" is actually blood and tries to get up, but the waiter forces him to sit back down and pulls back a curtain which is hiding a large mirror. None of the restaurants customers or staff, except him, cast a reflection in it, because all the assembled people apart from himself are vampires.
Two of the vampires rush off to close the curtains and lock the doors, while the rest of them eye him up with evil grins on their faces, then Donna appears, holding the knife that only a few minutes earlier he had stabbed her to death with.
Rodgers cries out in fear off camera, and, after Donna has descended the stairs, two female vampires, now sporting fangs, talk about how "the fresh stuff" is much better than the "frozen stuff" as they sip blood from glasses. Donna asks for a glass too, and laughs as her brother is shown hanging upside down from a hook in the ceiling with a tap attached to his jugular vein from which the waiter fills the assembled grinning vampires glasses with fresh blood, literally "straight from the tap".

Rodgers says his dream is silly, but for some reason he has it all the time. When asked by Critchit if he really does have a sister, he looks at the floor and says a simple "no", before asking Critchit what his dreams are like....

Story #2 "The Neat Job"
Arthur Critchit (Thomas) is an obsessive neat freak. Over dinner with one of his friends, he announces that after amassing a large fortune with a good home filled with lots of stuff, he plans to marry, as he needs someone to keep house for him. The woman he marries is Eleanor, a much younger woman who, in spite of Critchits expectations, is very messy and inept.
His continual nagging and belittleing of her over the most inconsequencial matters of neatness causes some upset, and, she reveals to her friend, she only married him for his money.
The last straw for her occurs when Arthur comes home from work to find she has messed up his woodworking bench by emptying out all of his screws while looking for a nail to rehang a picture on the wall. He screams and nags at her, so, in response, she caves his skull in with a hammer.
Later, Eleanor explains to Arthur that she has done just as he asked, and "everything is in its place, and theres a place for everything" before bursting out laughing. The camera pulls back to show that she has dismembered his corpse and placed the various pieces into a series of neatly stacked and ordered jars.

Critchit explains to Moore (Baker) that he is no more neater than anyone else, but yet, his dream seems so real, Sebastian (Jurgens) says he knows the feeling...

Story #3 "This Trick'll Kill you!"
Sebastian and his wife are on holiday in India, while there they search for new tricks to use in Sebatstians day job as a magician. None of the tricks he sees performed by any of the street fakirs impresses him until he sees a woman using a flute to charm a piece of rope out of a basket so it stands solid and erect in the air, with no discernable way of holding it up there, he is even more astonished when she shimmys up it and hangs in mid air. He offers the woman a large sum of money if she will tell him how the trick works, but she refuses and says that there is no trickery involved, the rope itself is magic. He offers to buy the rope, but she refuses and says that the rope has been passed down from mother to daughter for centuries.
Angry that the woman will not tell him her secrets, he hatches a plan to get them. He approaches the woman and says that he will pay her if she comes to their hotel room and shows his wife the magic, however when the woman comes, she performs the trick, and Sebastian stabs her.
Try as they might, neither Sebastian or his wife can figure out how the rope works, but when Sebastian plays a few notes on the flute, the rope begins to rise. His wife climbs the rope and finds that it is solid enough to take her weight, but then she screams and vanishes into thin air, and blood begins to drip from the ceiling just above where the rope hangs. Sebastian tries to run away, but the rope prevents his every effort to leave by whipping around the room, eventually, it coils around his neck and strangles him.
In the market, the fakir that Sebastian humiliated earlier performs his "magic basket" trick, while his assistant, the woman Sebastian killed earlier, plays her flute....

The other men sit in silence as Sebastian finishes his tale by saying that he doesnt believe in ghosts, as they are just illusions created by magicians.
Maitland (Craig) says that he too has a similar experience to share...

Story #4 "Bargain in Death"
Maitland and his friend Alex have hatched a plot where Maitland will fake his own death in order to claim the payout on his life insurance. The plan goes that he will take a drug which will make him appear dead, and then after he is buried, Alex will dig him up and they will both be rich. The plan goes swimmingly, until Alex decides to double cross Maitland and leave him buried in a coffin. Meanwhile, two medical students pay a grave robber to steal a fresh corpse for them to dissect. The grave robber digs up Maitlands grave, and as he cracks open the coffin, Maitland bursts out gasping for air, which causes the medical students to run out of the graveyard into the road, where they cause Alexs car to crash as he passes to bid a sarcastic farewell to his "friend". The grave robber, eager to get paid for his work, approaches the two students and demands payment, apologising for the damage to the bodies head, then Maitland is shown still lying in his coffin, albeit now with a massive and fatal head wound.

Critchit denounces the tale as preposterous, and when Moore questions it, he is told to tell his tale...

Story #5 "Drawn and Quartered"
 Moore (Baker) is a struggling artist living on the island of Haiti. Even though he produces a lot of work, he is told by his agent that his work is considered rubbish by one of Londons leading art critics. One day, one of Moores old friends turns up and during idle conversation reveals that Moores paintings, far from being worthless, are actually selling for large amounts of money back home.
Moor visits a witch doctor and asks if he can use Voodoo to get revenge on those who have wronged him, the witch doctor tells him to put the hand he paints with into his cooking pot. Moore sarcastically asks if he needs a little doll to stick pins into, but the witch doctor tells him he is an artist, so he doesnt need one, Moore pays the man but leaves thinking he has been ripped off.
Later, Moore does a sketch of a vase, which he messes up, as he tosses the paper in the bin, the vase breaks. He then makes a quick pencil sketch of a piece of bread, and when he rubs a corner off his drawing, a rat comes in and eats the corresponding corner of the bread. Finally, he makes a red mark on  the face of a self portrait he painted earlier, and is surprised when nothing happens, but later, after a restless sleep, he awakes and finds that his face now bears a wound in exactly the same place as he made the mark.
Borrowing money from his friend, he flies back to London, taking the self portrait along with him.
Setting up an art studio in the home he lived in before he moved to Haiti, he locks the picture of himself inside a safe, so no harm can come to him while he sets about his task.
He then confronts the three men who swindled him, his agent, an art critic and a publisher, none of whom apologise for what they have done, and laugh him out of the office.
He paints portraits of the three men, all looking smug, and then, adressing the pictures in turn, as though they were real people, he outlines his revenge.
For  Fenton the art critic, he states that because he saw his pictures and then lied about their value to the public, his punishment will be to never see another picture again, and he gouges out the pictures eyes...

....Fenton argues with his wife over whether he is having an affair or not, and more or less admits that he is, and intends to go on doing so, in response, his wife throws acid in his face, blinding him....

Gaskill, the art dealer, is told that because he used his hands to handle the paintings and sell them for a lot more than he had been told that they were worth, he will never handle anything again, and then he cuts the bottom of the picture, containing Gaskills hands, off...

....Gaskill belittles a young clerk who is having trouble using the guillotine to cut some card, and shows him how to do it. On his second demonstration, the guillotine drops down before Gaskill can get his hands out of the way, chopping them both off at the wrists....

His agent, Mr Diltant, is told that he can wait until tomorrow.

Diltant reads the news of his co-conspirators accidents in the paper, and gets a little worried. Moore turns up unannounced at his office and demands to speak with him, Dilitant tells his secretary to let him in, and then to go home. Moore enters carrying Dilitants portrait and, afte rplacing his watch on dilitants desk, he tells him he has precisely two minutes to live. Dilitant pulls a gun out of his pocket, but Moore tells him he just wants to show him something, and removes a red felt tip pen from his pocket, which he then uses to paint a red dot on the portraits forehead. dilitant looks puzzled at first, but then realises with horror that the hand he is holding the gun in is now aiming the gun at his own head, and Moore, sporting a cheeky grin, watches with delight as Dilitant shoots himself in the head.
Moore then struggles to breathe, and, remembering the safe he locked his self portrait in was airtight, he rushes home and lets air into the safe by opening its heavy door. Once he is alright again, he places his self portrait on an easel under the skylight in his art room, but then as he checks his watch, he remembers he left it behind in Dilitants office, and  rushes out to try and get it back, as its very presence there could implicate him in Dilitants murder.
A workman who is painting a sign above the skylight gets a little careless and kicks a can of paint stripper off his platform, which falls and smashes through the skylight and douses the self portrait, destroying it. At the same moment, Moore is crushed under the wheels of a truck as he runs across the road to hail a taxi....

The men discuss how their dreams could be warnings of something that could happen, when all of a sudden, the lift they came down in pings, and the doors open. They enter the lift and instead find themselves standing in a graveyard.
One by one, all the men except Sebastian silently file towards their own graves, where they vanish. Sebastian explains that every night for all eternity, they are forced to tell their stories to each other as punishment for what they did when they were alive. Sebastian then makes his way to his own grave, and vanishes....

Amicus Horror Anthologies - Asylum (1972)

During the 60s and 70s, British film makers Amicus productions made a series of films containing several short horror stories, linked by a framing story.
Starring many big names (for the time), these low/medium budget films told several stories mainly concerning ghosts and the supernatural in a typically British way, and usually featured some sort of twist ending.

The fifth of these films was 1972's "Asylum", also known as "House of the crazies" for its US release.
Asylum contained dramatisations of stories written and scripted by writer Robert Bloch , who also scripted the film adaptation of Alfred Hitchcocks "Psycho".
This film was the very first Amicus anthology film I ever saw, when it was shown on ITVs Friday night horror movie slot back in the early 1990s, and in a way it kick started my liking for films in the anthology genre as a whole.

Framing Story
Dr. Martin (Robert Powell ) arrives at the secluded "Dunsmoor Asylum For The Incurably Insane", intending to secure a job as a psychiatrist. He is expecting to be interviewed for the position by the manager of the place, a Dr. B Starr, but instead finds the wheelchair bound and incredibly stubborn Dr. Rutherford (Patrick Magee ) waiting for him instead.
Over the course of some verbal sparring between the two men, Rutherford reveals that Dr. Starr suffered a total and complete mental breakdown, and thus was incarcerated in his own asylum, and, should Dr. Martin be able to identify him by interviewing several of the patients there, he will be "considered" for the job.
Rutherford goes on to explain that the patients he is to interview are all completely and incurably insane, and have a penchant for inventing completely false stories,displaying many different alternate personas and being somewhat violent, and as such, the door to the wing he is about to go into can only be opened by pushing a button on his desk, so as to prevent the maniacs from escaping, but Martin reassures Rutherford that he has dealt with severely mentally disturbed people before.
Martin ascends the stairs to the wing he is to interview in and is greeted by Max the orderly, who tells him he has been instructed to give no indications whatsoever which patient is Dr. Starr.
He leads Martin the the first room, where he is to interview "Bonnie"...

Story #1 - "Frozen Fear"
Bonnie and Walter are lovers, however Walter is married to the posessive heiress Ruth. Ruth is a practitioner of Voodoo, and after an argument over wanting a divorce from her, which she will not grant, Walter executes his plan to escape from her.
Walter surprises Ruth by showing her the large chest freezer (still something of a novelty in early 1970s Britain) he has bought for her and had installed in the cellar, she is overjoyed at the gift he has given her, but Walter says there is another surprise for her, when she asks what it is, he responds by bludgeoning her to death with an axe.
Hours pass, and Walter dismembers the body and wraps the individual pieces of it up in brown paper, before neatly packing them inside the freezer, where he hopes they will lay undiscovered for quite some time.
As he finishes off celaning up the murder scene, he notices Ruths Voodoo bracelet still left lying around, so he casually tosses it in the freezer along with the body parts, telling her to "rest in pieces".
The phone rings, and Walter tells Bonnie he has finished his task, Bonnie tells him she is coming, but they will need to take the body parts along with them when they escape, in order to dispose of them somewhere along the way. Walter isnt too pleased about this but goes along with the idea anyway.
He pours himself a stiff drink and sits down to wait for Bonnies arrival, when suddenly he hears a strange noise coming from the kitchen. He is terrified to see Ruths Dismembered head, still wrapped in brown paper, rolling by itself across the kitchen floor, stopping to glare at him ominously as it reaches the doorway. Walter throws his glass at the head, but the head suddenly vanishes. Walter, putting this down to a hallucination brought on by guilt, decides to go down and check to make sure he wasn't imagining things.
He cautiously makes his way down to the cellar, and is shocked to see the freezer lid open. When he looks in the freezer, Ruths dismembered arm shoots up and grabs him by the throat.
Bonnie arrives later, and calls out Walters name, but finds nothing in the house save for the broken glass and spilt drink on the kitchen floor, then, the cellar door creaks open ominously on its own.
She heads down there to see what is happening, but still doesn't find Walter anywhere. Morbid curiosity compels her to look in the freezer, and she finds herself looking at Walters dead body. She makes to go back upstairs, but finds Ruths severed but still breathing head staring back at her, she flees in terror but is set upon by Ruths other body parts. She tries to escape by going through another door, but finds it locked.
She grabs the axe that Walter used to kill and dismember his wife with and tries unsuccessfully to attack the various body parts as they crawl towards her, but she is unable to stop any of them. Suddenly, one of Ruths arms drops down from the rafters and grabs her face, so Bonnie begins wildly slashing at it with the axe....

Bonnie concludes her story by revealing that the police found her laying unconscious the following morning, and that they told her that she had strangled Walter. She says she tried to tell them about Ruth and her various body parts, but everything was gone. She then turns round and reveals a large ugly scar across her face, inflicted upon herself while she was slashing with the axe.
Outside the room, Dr. Martin diagnoses Bonnie as having an acute case of paranoid psychosis, to which Max shrugs his shoulders and moves him to the next room.
Bruno sits cross legged on the table, sewing imaginary cloth with an imaginary needle and thread. Dr. Martin asks him what he is doing, and Bruno begins his tale...

Story #2 - "The Weird Tailor"
Bruno (Barry Morse ) is a jewish tailor who has fallen on hard times. When the rent man comes calling, Bruno is unable to pay him, and instead offers to make him a suit, his offer is refused, and he is tol he has until Saturday morning to come up with the money or he will have to leave.
Bruno tells his wife the sad news, but then their spirits are uplifted when a man named simply "Smith" (Peter Cushing ) enters the shop and asks if Bruno can make him a suit.
Smith produces a bolt of strange cloth, which glows with an other worldly aura, and gives Bruno a set of very detailed instructions governing how the suit is to be made, and what times he can work on it, all of these times being in the early hours of the morning. Brun offers to take Smiths measurements but Smith explains that the suit is to be a surprise gift for his son, and that he needs it completing as soon as possible, promising to pay him £200 (still a lot of money in 1972) when he completes and delivers it to him on Friday morning.
Bruno spends four nights working slavishly on the garment, but manages to get it completed in time and delivers it himself to Smiths house.
Bruno finds Smiths house in darkness and a state of disrepair, which surprises him as Smith appeared to be a very wealthy man, Smith explains that he cannot pay him the £200 as promised, but will settle up with him afterwards. Bruno refuses to hand over the suit until he receives payment, but Smith assures him that there is nothing in the house worth taking, aside from a very rare one of a kind book of magic that he spent his entire fortune on. Bruno becomes angry and looks in one of the rooms to find a body in a coffin, he accuses Smith of being a murderer, but Smith points out that the body is that of his son, who died of natural causes some time ago, and the suit is made of a magical cloth which when he puts it on the body, his son will return to life.
Bruno refuses once again to hand over the suit without payment, but Smith pulls a revolver from his pocket and the two men fight, ending with the gun going off accidentally and killing Smith.
Bruno grabs the book of magic spells and flees the house.
His wife asks what is wrogn when he returns home, and he tells her that Smith was a fraud and to burn the suit because of its unnatural abilities, he says that he will sell the book and get the money that way. As he inspects the books contents, he notices that his wife hasnt fired up their boiler, meaning she is not burning the suit as he requested, she tells him that she thinks that if someone sees the suit on display in the window, that they will come in and buy it, so, to that end, she has dressed their mannequin, who she has named "Otto" in the suit. Bruno cries out in horror, but by then it is too late, Otto has come to life and begins rampaging through the shop, stopping to throttle Bruno.....

Bruno pleads with Dr. Martin to find and stop Otto, but Max coldly locks him back in his room and leads Martin to the next room.
Barbera ( Charlotte Rampling ) sits staring at herself in the mirror, and asks if Dr. Martin is the lawyer she had been asking for. He answers in the negative and introduces himself as a doctor. Barbera dismisses him, and says she has plenty of experience with the medical profession, having been in mental institutions before. Martin asks her to clarify  but she says that all she needs is to be let out, what happened wasnt her fault and they should instead look for someone called "Lucy".....

Story #3 "Lucy Comes To Stay"
Barbera is brought home from another stay in a mental institution by her brother George (it is implied throughout the story that Barbera is a habitual drug user, which causes her to hallucinate and blame actions she carries out herself on someone called "Lucy")  , she says she feels a lot better after her stay in hospital and that what happened will never happen again. When they arrive home, Barbera is told that they will have a live in carer, Nurse Higgins, to look after her until she gets back on her feet. She doesnt appreciate this one bit and resents the implication that she is an invalid and requires someone to look after her, and, more importantly, to act as a prison guard.
Later that night, Nurse Higgins is called away after a family emergency, and Barbera awakens to find herself alone in the house, so she immediately finds a hidden stash of drug and takes several of the little yellow pills. Lucy ( Britt Ekland)  suddenly appears and says that she let herself in after tricking George and Nurse Higgins into leaving by making a fake telephone call from the garage. Lucy is very charismatic and forceful, and tells Barbera that they will need to work quickly if theyre going to escape. Barbera says she doesnt feel too good and Lucy conjectures that she has been taking "those pills" again, which Barbera denies, but Lucy says she knows when she is being lied to. Lucy and Barbera debate abut George wanting to keep Barbera sedated and submissive so that he can make off with the fortune left to Barbera by their late father. Lucy wins the argument and tells Barbera to get the £100 she had been saving for a new dress, so they can use it to rent a room somewhere and go into hiding. Lucy says she has everything planned, and they will leave that night, once George is asleep by stealing his car.
That night, while George is taking a phone call from Nurse Higgins to tell him that the family emergency was a fake, an unseen hand pours some sort of powder into his tea, which George then drinks and falls alseep.
Lucy wakes Barbera and tells her to pack, then she takes a pair of scissors and cuts the phone line, saying that they don't want Nurse Higgins calling the police before they've had a chance to get away.
Barbera once again takes some pills form her hidden stash and swears that she wont take any more when Lucy catches her with them. Lucy accuses her of always choosing drugs over everything else, and not owning up to the fact that she secretly hates both Lucy and George. Lucy gets angry and leaves when Barbera says she cant get through the day without taking the pills, so Barbera follows her, and runs into Nurse Higgins who has just got back. They go through to the study and there they find George slumped in his chair dead, with a pair of scissors sticking out of his chest.
Nurse Higgins tries to call for an ambulance but finds the phone dead, so she follows Barbera upstairs, only to have Lucy stab her in the chest as she reaches the top.
Lucy tells Barbera she is now free of all of them...

Barbera tells Dr.Martin that Lucy is the one they want, not her, and Martin asks where they can find Lucy. Barbera turns to the mirror and, while pointing at herself says "shes right here!" before laughing insanely.

Dr.Martin wonders if Rutherford is playing games with him, and if Dr. Starr actually exists, being as that thus far, all of the patiens he has seen have names beginning with the letter "B", as in "B. Starr", bu tMax says he cannot say anything until Martin makes his choice, before leading him to the final patient.
Max explains that this one is a cut above the rest, as unlike the others, he his a Doctor by the name of Byron (Herbert Lom ).
Byron sits at his workbench making a model of a human arm, and introduces himself cordially as the tow men enter his room...

Story #4 "Mannequins Of Terror"
Byron explains to Martin that he is an accomplished neurosurgeon and Doctor of internal medicine, but of late he has found a new hobby, namely that of making anatomically correct human figurines, which he shows Martin a cabinet full of the almost robot like dolls. He goes on to explain that the figures are not only an accurate cosmetic likeness of the people he has modelled them on, but also internally identical, containing functional eyes, internal organs and a fully functioning brain. He says that is is his belief that one can will life into their likeness, in a similar manner to what God used to create Adam and Eve. Martin finds this concept ridiculous, and declares Byron to be mad when he produces a figure of himself. Byron says he intends to project his consciousness into the figure, and that Rutherford had him locked up.

Martin and Max leave Byron in peace, and Rutherford is informed that Martin is on his way down.
Martin lambastes Rutherford for his poor treatment of the patients, none of whom have had any attempt to make any kind of treatment to help them escape their delusions, but once again Rutherford insists that everyone he has just seen are completely and incurably insane.

Upstairs, Byron lays on his bed clutching the figure of himself in his hands and staring at it intensely.

Rutherford explains that the only real cure for all of them is a lobotomy, which although Martin agrees would be effective, it would also turn anyone it is used on into a mindless vegetable.

Byron still stares at the figure of himself, and suddenly a spark of life appears in its eyes, and the figure begins moving by itself. Byron places the figure on the floor and it begins walking towards the door.
Max enters Byrons room to drop off his dinner, and doesn't notice Byrons homonculus sneak out of the door and make its way into the dumb waiter used to bring the patients food up from the kitchen.

Rutherford asks Martin for his choice, but before he can answer, they are disturbed by a nurse bringing them some refreshments. Martin says he does not intend to choose, instead, he intends to return home and report the asylum for malpractice, as Rutherfords regieme is of no medical or psychological benefit to anyone concerned. Rutherford disputes Martins observations.

Unnoticed as the two men argue over physchiatric treatments for the patients, Byrons homonculus climbs on to Rutherfords desk, where it then picks up a surgical scalpel that Rutherford had left there, and stabs Rutherford in the back of the neck with it.

Martin rushes to Rutherfords aid, but he is dead. He looks up and sees Byrons homonculus walking away, at first he seizes it, but then throws it to the floor. The figure raises its arms defensively, but Martin stamps on it, he removes his foot to reveal still pulsing viscrea flowing out of the figures crushed torso.

Upstairs, Byron cries out in agony, and Max rushes to see what is wrong....

Martin flicks the switch on Rutherfords desk and runs upstairs to find Max horrified at what he has just seen. Martin enquires on Byrons condition, but Max tells him not to go in to the room, as Byrons body has been crushed, as though a weight fell upon him from a great height.
Martin concludes that "Byron" was Dr. Starr, Max asks him if that was his choice, to which Martin replies that it was obvious. Martin then makes for Max's office, saying he intends to call for help, Max makes to stop him, but he is too slow, and Martin enters the room, finding a body hidden under a blanket on the bed. The dead man has been strangled, and Max tells him that he died two days ago, and he hadnt had a chance to get rid of it yet. Martin asks who he was, and is told that the mans name was "Max". Horrified, Martin realises that "Max" is actually Dr. Starr, and that he has killed the real Max and replaced him, as he tries to escape, Dr. Starr (Geoffrey Bayldon ) strangles him from behind with his stethoscope.
As Martin lays dying on the floor, Dr. Starr listens to his heart beat, and when it stops, he begins laughing like a maniac.

Another Doctor arrives for a job interview, and is greeted at the door by "Max", who ushers him inside and then "closes the door to keep out the draughts, as Dr. Starr used to say", before giving one final evil grin to the camera....