“Tales from the Crypt” is a British anthology movie comprising five short stories, with a framing story involving five people on a tour of some kind of catacombs, apparently getting separated from their group and coming across a man in a monk’s robes who makes each one of them see a story ostensibly about their future. The monk (or Crypt Keeper) is played by Ralph Richardson, who is joined by Joan Collins, Ian Hendry, Peter Cushing, Patrick Magee and others. It was made by Amicus and directed by Freddie Francis, who directed for film and TV during the seventies and eighties.  It has a good selection of spooky stories and a great framing narrative, supported by an excellent cast.

“And all through the house” is a Christmas story, where Joan Collins murders her husband on Christmas eve. There is nothing wrong with the marriage – she simply wants to collect the insurance money. She does this with her young daughter sleeping upstairs, who comes down at one point asking if Santa has been yet. This woman manages to meet her comeuppance on the very same evening, as a maniac dressed up as Santa is roaming the neighbourhood and comes to her house. She can’t call the police due to her husband’s dead body lying there, and then her little girl, coming down again and seeing ‘Santa’ at the door, lets him in. There is very little dialogue in this segment, except for the radio announcing the killer on the loose and Collins’ exchange with the little girl. Collins is excellent at this, methodically bludgeoning her husband, checking out the insurance policy, trying to hide the body, and then the nervousness about the radio announcement, followed by terror when she realises the killer is outside her house trying to get in, and of course, once he is inside, we all know what happens next. The escalating tension is done very well.  Back in the crypt, she assumes what she has seen has not happened yet but might if she goes ahead with her plan.

In “Reflection of Death” Ian Hendry tells his wife he’s going on a business trip and leaves her and his children to run away with another woman. However, they have a car accident. He (apparently) comes to and leaves the crashed car to find help, but everyone who sees him screams and leaves. Eventually he ends up back home only to be met with a very nasty surprise, only to wake up in the car just before the accident. Ian Hendry doesn’t really have much to do here. He is very smooth when he is lying to his wife, and only seems to feel a small amount of regret for leaving his children. This particular segment is not one of the best in the movie – I am not sure if the idea was cliché at the time, but unfortunately it has become something of a cliché since.

“Poetic Justice” involves Robin Phillips as a snobbish and wealthy young man who is incensed at the existence of his less well-off neighbour Peter Cushing. The young man is convinced that the old man’s shabbier house is somehow decreasing the value of his, and in general doesn’t like that a more working-class type is living in his street. In order to fix this, Phillips’ character instigates an organized campaign of harassment against the old man. He gets the man’s employer to fire him, scares the neighbourhood women into forbidding their children to go near him (they would visit him and he would make toys for them), digs up another neighbour’s roses, leading to the council removing the old man’s pet dogs as the culprits, and culminates in sending him multiple Valentine’s Day cards addressed from everyone in the street with cruel rhymes about how he’s a terrible person and should just die. Cushing’s character eventually takes his own life. A year later he rises from the grave to take a horrible revenge on the bully. This is in my opinion the best story. Cushing is fabulous as always in the role of the elderly widower (apparently this was not long after his wife passed away and, in his scenes, where he talks to her using a Ouija board he doesn’t really have to act – the dead wife is called Helen, like Cushing’s wife.) Robin Phillips is suitably slimy as the terrible young man, and ably supported by David Markham as his father, who seems slightly less unpleasant but more than happy to go along with it. There is a prevailing atmosphere in this story of sorrow, for the old man, and disgust at the activities of the other characters. The only horror element is right at the end, and is almost a relief that someone who in the real world would never be held accountable actually is.

In “Wish You Were Here” Richard Greene is a dishonest businessman whose shady dealings have left him bankrupt. He tells his wife about this, and she wonders if a statue they own, can help them. It has a legend attached that it will grant three wishes to the owner. She wishes for lots of money, and her husband dies. She attempts to get him back with further wishes, and the results are not pretty, condemning the man to eternal torment. While the actors involved in this segment are all good, again it is one of the lesser stories in the movie. It also includes a plot hole which does not tie it into the eventual movie ending very well.

Finally, “Blind Alleys” stars Nigel Patrick as an ex-Army officer who is given the role of director at a home for the blind. He causes suffering for the residents by cutting costs to the bone, depriving them of decent food, heating, sufficient blankets and so on. After one of them dies the residents, led by a very angry Patrick Magee, concoct a rather nasty revenge, involving the director’s own dog. It’s a very creepy story, my only gripe being I don’t think the dog deserved to be involved like that, as it was an innocent party. Patrick makes for a very good callous and disinterested man, using power as an excuse to do what he wants without consideration for the effect on others. Magee is excellent, his simmering anger from the start leading to his concoction of a clever and complex revenge plot.

There are spoilers ahead. Ralph Richardson, the crypt keeper, is brilliantly sinister, looking at the five people in front of him with disdain and contempt. He reveals that what they have believed are revelations of the future are memories of the past. They are, in fact, all dead. A door opens, and it is the doorway to hell. As the characters fall into a fiery pit, the crypt keeper asks who is next. He then turns to the camera. “Is it you?”

I found this to be a highly entertaining movie, with great performances. While the second and fourth stories are not quite as good as the other three, they all are certainly entertaining and sufficiently spooky. It also manages to imply scary things with a minimum of gore, which requires in my opinion more creativity than many splatterfest movies these days. I would recommend this movie to anyone who likes horror, and values suspense and atmosphere above jump scares and blood.