Another anthology film, this time from back in 1967. I see that Jack Palance and Burgess Meredith are in this, so it has my attention. I love Burgess. Peter Cushing also is in this. That guy just loved anthology horror apparently. My goodness. We get 4 short stories in this one so each will be able to score a maximum of 2.5 on the rating scale. Spoilers are coming and if you wish to avoid them, jump down to the last paragraph to get my final thoughts as well as rating.
SPOILERS
Oh my goodness. Burgess is in the wraparound story and has a black cape, red lining, top hat, looks dapper. His name is Dr. Diablo. Then there’s the mustache and eye makeup to make him look like the devil. He’s the hype guy, but he has some exhibit to show people, asks for 5 pounds from 5 people. He burns the cash, so he just wants to show these people horror. He doesn’t give a fuck. Burgess is perfect for this role.
Segment #1 “Enoch”
Colin visits his dying uncle, Roger, and he thinks that his uncle is wealthy. Well, he kinda was, and Colin kills his uncle. He finds the gold coins that provided the wealth, but along with the coins come this cat. The cat tells Colin to kill people. He eventually gets caught. The cat then proceeds to mindfuck a cop. That gets a 0.4 from me. I didn’t like that at all.
Segment #2 “Terror Over Hollywood”
This starts off with the blonde running around in her bra, with her small tits, but I still enjoy looking. Millie is the blonde, and Carla is the dark-haired one who just ruined Millie’s dress, intentionally. Millie is to go on a date with a Mike Charles. Carla steals her date basically and sees Eddie Storm and Bruce Benton who are Hollywood producers I guess. Mike Charles got some work turned down by Eddie, so Mike is all pissy and leaves. Anyway, to make things faster, Carla falls for Bruce. Bruce gets her a role in a film. Bruce gets shot in the head but was perfectly fine after. We find out that he and Eddie are made of metal and still have their brain. Mike wanted in on this gig, but they had to kill him instead. Now that Carla knows, well she got the operation as well. Rating: 0.45as it did nothing for me. This is not going well.
Segment #3 “Mr. Steinway”
This didn’t resonate with me at all. I kept wishing that the Twilight Zone had done this because they would have made it a tad quirky and fun, where this just lacked any charm. Let’s sum it up, a haunted piano. Yeah, any time a chick gets close to this dude, the piano throws a hissy fit, well as much of a hissy fit as a piano can throw. Rating: 0.2 and this is a bad film at this point for me.
Segment #4 “The Man Who Collected Poe”
I can see why this is beloved more than the rest. It’s really good and stars Peter Cushing and Jack Palance. These 2 guys were great. Basically, Peter was an Edgar Allen Poe collector, as was his father and grandfather, and Jack had a huge interest in his collection. It kept up a good pace and added more intrigue as it went until we see that Edgar is still alive. This was good stuff and I can give it a full 2.5 out of 2.5 with no regrets.
The end of the wrap around stuff featured Burgess a bit more and he was the devil after all. I will give a full point for Burgess.
End SPOILERS
End Film
Final Thoughts – Honestly, watch the opening until the uncle story begins, and then skip forward until the last story about Poe begins. You’ll have watched approximately 30-35 good minutes of film and skipped all the rubbish. Sadly, the first 3 stories were not very good, even considering that it was 1967, they were very bland and not very compelling.
Rating: 4.6 seems fair as I would never watch this whole film again, but would watch the last story. Everything else simply existed.
All the pictures used in this blog are for review purposes. They are the property of:
- Columbia Pictures Corporation (presents)
- Amicus Productions
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