Well, this is the follow up to Tales from the Crypt. Apparently, looking at IMDB, there are quite a few films like these all made around the same time. So I am naturally going to attempt to find them and watch them. I love these anthology style films. If you want to know the stories and my reactions as I go, read on beyond the spoilers. If you just want my final thoughts and rating, just scroll to the last paragraph. No feelings will be hurt.
SPOILERS
So 5 business guys in an elevator end up not on the floor that they intended, they end up in the basement, and there’s a table set up with 5 chairs and booze. There are no buttons to call the elevator, so let’s make the most of it.
Segment 1 “Midnight Mess”
Rogers hires a private investigator to find his sister, Donna. With that accomplished, Rogers kills the P.I. Next, he goes to the town and wants to eat, but the restaurant is closing at7 PM, which he finds odd, but at night is when “they” come out. So Rogers finds Donna instead, informs her that their father is dead, and that she is the sole benefactor of the inheritance. Oh, and she talks about “them” at night. He then proceeds to stab and kill her. He leaves and sees that the restaurant is open, so he goes to get some food. Seriously, you know how this plays out. He gets served not tomato juice and eventually causes alarm to his tastes, and sees that he is the only person in the restaurant with a reflection, so they serve him up as Donna joins in on the blood drawing. 2.0 out of 2.
Segment 2 “The Neat Job”
Critchit is a wealthy older guy who has spent his life getting all of the tangible things in life to his liking and now it’s time to get a wife. He marries Eleanor. She tries, but this dude is a neat freak and she is idealistic and clumsy. He keeps having issues with how she does things, like rearranging furniture and running out of tomato sauce. Anyway, one disastrous day, she leaves a ring on the coffee table so she tries to fix that, but spills stuff, knocks the painting off the wall, etc. This causes Critchit to go into a rage mode when he gets home so she flips out and puts a hammer in his head. The end shows us her having arranged all of his body parts and organs into glass jars. 0.4 out of 2.0 as it dragged on.
Segment 3 “This Trick’ll Kill You”
We have a white couple, Sebastian and Inez, who happen to be magicians that are traveling in India. They see a trick, call the guy out and poke holes in his act. They see this lady perform a magic rope trick, but she explains to Sebastian that she can’t sell the trick, but agrees to perform it in front of his sick wife in the hotel room. Anyway, they kill her, play the flute or whatever instrument that was and Inez climbs the magical rope, gets sucked up into nothingness, blood shows up and then in a comical moment, Sebastian cannot escape the rope because he’s a moron and gets lynched. This was only slightly better than the last so 0.5 out of 2.0.
Segment 4 “Bargain In Death”
The plan is simple. Maitland is going to have a fake death with some sedatives lowers all of his bodily functions. His buddy Alex is to collect the insurance money, and then dig up Maitland who will be buried alive. After that, Maitland plans on shooting Alex. Lots of Tales From The Crypt references here to the books and even the film. Maitland lives in a house with other residents such as 2 younger college guys, Tom and Jerry (I shit you not), who are working on anatomy and wished they had a body to work on outside of designated scheduled times, and the lady who runs the house, who discovers that he’s dead. So Tom and Jerry are psyched and go to the graveyard to get the body. They hire a big dude to dig up the grave, and he’s awesome. This is more like the TV show with it’s quirkiness. He finally gets the coffin open and Maitland scares Tom and Jerry, who run away, right into the street, and scare Alex who is driving off with the insurance money. Maitland also scared Hoss who bashed his bloody head in. Tom and Jerry get their cadaver after all. This was really good and enjoyable, so easy 2.0 out of 2.0.
Segment 5 “Drawn and Quartered”
Moore is a painter, and he is met by an old colleague, Bob Dixon, who reveals that Moore’s art isn’t as worthless as Moore thought. They are going for thousands. Moore is in some jungle region, so he finds this black gentleman who practices voodoo as Moore wants revenge on Diltant, the guy who has been screwing him over. Moore has to dunk his painting hand into a bubbling cauldron, and that’s it, he can go. That voodoo guy was awesome as hell. The guy who plays Moore was Doctor Who from 74-84, so there’s that if you are into that. Moore is living in what we may consider a hut. It appears quite small. He draws this vase with paintbrushes in it, that’s what is in his room, doesn’t like it and shreds it to pieces and then the vase falls and breaks. He immediately slices a piece of bread, throws on the floor. He draws it and then erase a bite out of it, and along comes the rat. Alright, now we have a story. He then adds a red vertical line to his right cheek on one of his self portraits. Why? Why do that? At night he has a bad dream, rolls out of bed, and you guessed it, he cut his cheek. In that case, immediately draw a pimp chain with lots of diamonds and shit around your neck, and bitches, lots of beautiful bitches….or get revenge and probably end up dead. Moore borrows money from Bob to get to London and get an apartment and a big ass, like 4 foot tall safe. Sir, it’s not to late to get yourself hot bitches. Moore confronts Diltant and his 2 cronies who have all been lying to him, and he says that he will get revenge and they just laugh him out of the room. So he paints all 3 guys’ portraits. Fenton is the art critic is the first, and he will never see another piece of art again as his eyes get carved out of his painting. We see Fenton being confronted about having a mistress, and his wife threw some bottle of acid in his face. HOLD UP! So she just happened to have a small bottle of acid lying around? The fuck? Next is Arthur Gaskill, he’s the art dealer and he won’t be handling again, and his torso gets sliced in half in the portrait. Arthur is insulting some guy about how he’s not using this big ass paper cutter properly and well this leads to his hand getting chopped off. Why do I feel like Moore’s painting is going to get burned or flooded? Time for Diltant, but he can wait until tomorrow. The next day, Moore visits Diltant and he has read about his cohorts. Moore tells him that he has 2 minutes to live and sets a watch in front of him. Diltant draws a gun on Moore. Moore shows him Diltant’s portrait, and he gets out a red felt pen and draws a red circle between Diltant’s eyes. Diltant ends up begrudgingly shooting himself in that spot. Moore starts looking like he can’t breath. That’s the trick! His painting is in an airtight safe, but he opens it in time. He puts the painting up on an easel, but he has got to get somewhere and fast, so he leaves it there. We see above and outside the glass window that there is a guy painting and he has a can of paint thinner that falls, breaks the window, and Moore gets run over with his head flattened as the painting has now done. I really enjoyed that one as well, but a tad lengthy, so 1.5 out 2.0.
Back to the 5 men, and the elevator starts dinging. When the door opens, they see a graveyard. They walk through the graveyard and disappear one by one. Night after night they will be forced to retell the evil things that they have done, for all of eternity.
END SPOILERS
End Film
Final Thoughts – This was a lot of fun, just as Tales From the Crypt had been. Just like that, this had 3 that stood out and 2 that were kinda bland. I liked the 4th best, followed by 1, 5, 3, and finally 2 the least. Well worth your time if you can find a copy. Despite being almost 45 years old, these are still really quite fun if you like horror anthology.
Rating: 6.4 is what I am going with.
All the pictures used in this blog are for review purposes. They are the property of:
- Metromedia Producers Corporation (MPC) (presents)
- Amicus Productions (as An Amicus Production)
Please go find a copy and support the creators.
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