Review of Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965) by Camden N — 22 Feb 2009

I love this movie! I've always been a fan of the Amicus anthology films, and I watched this along with Tales From the Crypt numerous times when I was younger. I haven't seen this one since it used to air on AMC all the time, and it's interesting how I remembered some things differently. I won't go into specifics, but one major thing was the pacing of the stories. They were very short and succinct! I remembered them being much longer. While at first I reckoned this might've been due to commercial breaks, I remember at the time AMC played their films commercial free, with the commercials playing in-between. Also, I could've sworn some of the sequences were more colorful, but I suppose one's definition of colorful changes after seeing the films of Bava and Argento.

Watching it now from a critical standpoint, it seems to me that the films could have benefited from a longer running time. Their concise and thus never get boring, but at the same time they feel too rushed. The Werewolf sequence alone could've probably been expanded into a good feature!

I remember hating the vampire story as a kid (finding it very boring). While I still think it's the weakest of the 5 stories, I enjoyed it much more than I used to. The film might've worked better if it had had the crawling hand segment last (thus having Christopher Lee's skeptical character the last to give in and have his fortune told), but I still like it the way it is.

And about that Lee segment...it's definitely the best of the bunch! Much like the Vine sequence, the horror comes from the subtle way in which the audience witnesses the menace (in this case the crawling hand) creeping up in the totally ignorant protagonist. He kind of deserves it in this case, but the idea is still undeniably chilling, even if the special effects are pretty tacky. By the way, it seems they use that same terrible hand effect in ever Amicus anthology I watch. Did I mention the only other one I ever watched was Tales from the Crypt?

Scratch that. I also saw The House That Dripped Blood. Unfortunately it was terrible.

Anyway, I wholeheartedly recommend this one, especially to fans of Bava's Black Sabbath. Not only have you got colorful and skillful direction from a Cinematographer-turned-director, but you've also got a mini-compendium of the different sorts of horror films. Regrettably the zombies couldn't make it.