Another British horror anthology. Yes, Peter Cushing is involved, as is the great Christopher Lee. Denholm Elliot is also a familiar face to me now thanks to one of the other Anibus anthologies as they are referred to. As always, I will do my typical write up under the guise of spoilers and then you can skip to the end if you simply want my final thoughts and rating.
SPOILERS
The wrap around that this house has had numerous people buy it and something terrible seems to happen to them all. Well, that was simple. There’s an investigator who is asking about all of the past owners.
Segment #1 “Method For Murder”
Charles and Alice Hillyer buy the house, and Charles is a horror writer. His newest work is about a strangler named Dominic. Charles keeps seeing Dominic and slowly descends a bit into madness. Dominic is portrayed very well by the way. Alice is quite the looker compared to Charles. Basically, Alice hired this guy to portray Dominic, but he takes his role too far, kills the doctor, Charles, and Alice. Rating of 1.2 out of 2.5 as it had good intentions but bored me at times.
Segment #2 “Waxworks”
Phillip Grayson (Peter Cushing) is a bachelor who is finally winding down to enjoy the simple things like gardening, reading, and listening to music, by himself. I already like this guy. He goes to a Waxwork museum and sees a lady figure that he finds captivating, but the proprietor tells the story of her, being his dead wife and all. Later on, Phillip’s friend Neville pays him a visit. The owner, well he killed his wife and her lover I guess, and now he wants to kill Phillip and Neville. Lots of ascots in this one. Fred Jones would be delighted. A new guy comes in the museum and we see that Phillip has been killed and turned into a wax figure. Rating: 0.8 out of 2.5 as I found it to be the weakest of the group despite Peter Cushing’s good performance. The material was weak.
Segment #3 “Sweets For The Sweet”
We meet John Reid (Christopher Lee) and his daughter, Jane. She is spooked at the sight of fire. John wants somebody to stay with Jane while he is away on business, along comes Ann Norton. Ann wonders if Jane is a problem child, but Ann has experience as a teacher prior to getting married and is now a widow. Jane has a big fear of fire, but Ann does help quell that fear. Ann takes the job. John is such a dick, he doesn’t let Jane play with kids or toys. Jane claims to see pictures of her mother in the flames, but John says that’s impossible as she died when Jane was a baby and he kept no pictures. Ann buys Jane some toys, including a doll. John is pissed about the doll, so he burns it. An asks if John blames Jane for the death of his wife and he says that he was happy when she died because he found out what she really was. I can’t wait for the reveal. Ohhh, Jane has been reading up on witchcraft, surprise surprise. I thought they would hold off longer on the reveal. John struggles to find the candles during a power outage and then finds them hidden by Jane, but there are only 4 candles, so he smacks Jane. The next day, Jane gets hair clippings from her dad’s electric razor. John goes to a meeting and is in sudden pain and we see Jane stabbing something with a needle. So it begins. At night, John experiences chest pains and we see Jane with a wax figure with pins in it. The doctor suggests that it was probably indigestion. After Doc leaves, John reveals to Ann that he’s afraid of Jane, just like her mom, and tells her to find the wax doll. Ann asks for the doll, but Jane throws it in the fire, we hear him scream and she smiles. Nice. Rating 2.5 out of 2.5 as I found this to be captivating and fun, with good performances all around.
Segment #4 “The Cloak”
We meet Paul Henderson, and he likes the house instantly and is a horror film star. He is let down that the house isn’t haunted by ghosts. Henderson is a pain in the ass on the set, hates how the scenery looks. He doesn’t like the lack of realism. He goes on to list the great old horror and speaks of Dracula, the one with Bela Lugosi, not the one with this new fella, which is actually Christopher Lee. That’s fucking funny. After he bitches out everyone on set, he goes in his dressing room to find a business card on his mirror, belonging to Theo Von Hartmann. He owns a curio shop of sorts. He is hoping to find an older, worn cloak. Von Hartmann has just the right cloak. The cloak only cost 13 shillings. Von Hartmann can now rest in peace upon making the sale and is so happy and creepy simultaneously. The next day he puts the cloak on and can’t see himself in the mirror. Awesome. He does a scene with Carla Lind, the hot chick he initially checked the house out with. After the shot, Paul continues biting her neck. She is unhappy. Ingrid Pitt is the name of the actress and she was like the sexy starlet of the Hammer Horror films of the 70’s, so that makes sense. At the house, Paul puts the cape on and can fly and grows fangs, and also falls on his face during the descent. She is like 33 in this film, and while I enjoy her rack, the smoking is a turn-off. He invites her back for dinner to apologize for the bite. Apparently, there was a fire at Von Hartmann’s and they even found a coffin of a well-preserved body. Paul wants to burn the cloak, but she keeps egging him on to put the cloak on, despite it being close to the witching hour. It just hit midnight and he puts it on. She is taking great enjoyment out of his fear. Oh, it’s not the real cloak, Carla has the real one, and she puts it on. Paul is freaking out. She says that they love his films so much that they want him to become one of them and she flies up to attack him. That was fun. Rating: 2.0 out of 2.5 as I rather liked everything about this, including how it tied in with the ending. Just not as good as the third segment.
Wrap Around Ending
The Investigator goes to check the house, finds Paul and Carla as vampires in the basement. The house reflects the owner’s personality. Good job.
End Film
Final Thoughts – I was pleasantly surprised by how good this one was. I had lowered my expectations a bit but had a great time. The first segment was a cool idea, but there were some boring stretches that mentally took me out of it. The second segment with the waxwork figures was ok, but there wasn’t much substance to it, but good performances. The third segment was the best, in part, due to Christopher Lee’s amazing performance as well as the story itself. Really good. The fourth segment was a little cheesy, but fit in with the time period and I had a lot of fun with it. Ingrid Pitt helped my interest a bit if we’re being honest.
Rating: 6.5 I expected in the 4 or 5 range, so this exceeded my expectation and will absolutely watch again, even if I skip the first half.
All the pictures used in this blog are for review purposes. They are the property of:
Amicus Productions (as An Amicus Production)
Please go find a copy and support the creators.
I am doing a GoFundMe to help pay for the costs to keep 9deuce.com up and running. I don’t make any money off of the site. I do it because I love it, but it is expensive at times, and I had to recently renew for 3 years. So I am asking any of my readers to consider donating if they have the extra funds. If you don’t, I get it. It would mean a lot to me.
https://www.gofundme.com/keep-9deucecom-alive
