Vault Of Horror (1973) [VHS]

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS REVIEW IS BASED ON THE VIPCO DVD RELEASE OF THIS FILM.

In the 1960s and 1970s Amicus were one of the main rivals of Hammer Studios, specialising in making horror films in the `Dead Of Night' portmanteau format.

One of my favourite Amicus movies has always been this one, mainly because of its superb all-star cast. Like `Tales From The Crypt', made a year earlier, this film takes its inspiration from the old EC comics of the 1950s as well as from other Amicus productions such as `Dr Terrors House Of Horrors' and `The House That Dripped Blood'.

The set up is fairly simple: Five men congregate in an elevator but instead of stopping at each one's desired floor the elevator takes them down to a basement room where each man then tells the others their recurring nightmare...

The first story is called Midnight Mess and stars real-life brother and sister Daniel and Anna Massey. A man called Rogers tracks down his sister to a strange town and tells her that their father has died and that she will inherit everything. Unfortunately he then pulls out a switchblade knife and stabs her several times, thus ensuring that all the money will go to him instead. To celebrate his impending wealth, the evil heir-sole then goes to a local restaurant but it is no ordinary restaurant...

The second story (The Neat Job) stars the late great Terry-Thomas as a man obsessed with neatness and tidiness. When he marries a clumsy and accident-prone lady it is inevitable that it is going to end in tragedy.

The third story (This Trick'll Kill You) stars future Bond villain Curt Jurgens as an unscrupulous magician who will go to any lengths to obtain new illusions for his latest act. Whilst in India he discovers a young lady with a magic rope that can be charmed like a snake and then climbed. When the girl refuses to sell the `trick' to him he kills her but soon regrets doing this.

The fourth tale (Bargain In Death) stars Michael Craig (best known to horror fans as the sadistic prison governor in Turkey Shoot, a.k.a. Blood Camp Thatcher) as a man who plans to fake his own death and then share the insurance payout with his accomplice (Edward Judd). This story features a double double-cross and also involves a couple of over-enthusiastic medical students. The end result is very messy.

The fifth, and best, story (Drawn And Quartered) stars Tom Baker as a struggling artist living in Haiti who invests in the power of voodoo to exact revenge on people in the art world who have conned and deceived him back in England. For me this segment contains one of the most shocking scenes in the whole film when an art dealer has an unfortunate `accident' with an office guillotine. This story also features Denholm Elliott as an art collector who ends up shooting himself in the head!

At the end of the film the fate of the five main protagonists will come as no surprise to anyone who has seen Dr Terrors House Of Horrors or Tales From The Crypt but I still think that this is a satisfying conclusion.

Unfortunately, this DVD version of this entertaining film is terrible. It says `Digitally Remastered' on the DVD cover but the picture and sound quality are just awful and do not do the film any justice at all. Visually the film does not seem to be any improvement over the VHS tape version released by the same company in the early 1990s. The soundtrack is very hissy with lots of pops and glitches in it - a bit like listening to an old and scratched vinyl record. That is why I can only give this item a two star rating. This is such a pity because I really like this film and I am sure somebody somewhere can do a much better job of releasing it on DVD.

As an avid fan of the old Hammer and Amicus movies I've been slowly completing my collection. When it came to "The Vault Of Horror" I had fond memories of watching it late at night on BBC many years ago so I jumped at the chance to own a copy of it on DVD.

Well, what a disappointment. This has to be THE worse transfer I've come across. The original source footage seems to have come from an NTSC videotape as the picture is rife with interlacing. The colours are all washed out: blacks appear as blue and everything else is a peculiar shade of yellowish-green. There are dirt/artifacts all over the picture (probably from the grubby old film stock it was originally taken from) To compound this the aspect ratio is 4x3 and NOT 16x9 as is stated on the reverse of the pack so in the opening credits, even some of the cast names don't fit on the screen.

Considering the lovely cleaned up versions of "From Beyond The Grave", "Tales From The Crypt" and "Doctor Terror's House Of Horrors" this really is shoddy to day the least and the poor quality visuals and sound spoil any viewing pleasure.

This will be sent back for a refund.

You have been warned.

VAULT OF HORROR is the story of five men who are sent via elevator to a basement beneath the Thames in London for no apparent reason. Once there, the men begin to discuss personal nightmares they have each had and this forms the framing for the collection of scary tales that follows. The first two stories which involve a man who arrives in a dark town of vampires and a nagging husband who pays a terrible price are less than satisfactory, and both have an element of daftness to them and are more black comedy than horror. However the three stories that follow are geniuniely unsettling and save the film.In the third a devious magician trys to buy the ultimate magic trick in India , in the fourth an attempt by a would be con artist to bury himself alive backfires horrifyingly and in the final and best an artist uses black magic to gain revenge on the art dealers who have wronged him.The ending is surprising and unexpected and crowns what is a fine effort from Amicus. If you are a fan of the modern American slashers such as Scream , you will most probably give this short shrift , but if you love a good old scary piece of British horror you will not be disappointed. The ensemble cast is equally impressive , with the likes of Tom Baker , Denholm Elliot and the late Terry Thomas giving good performances. The only drawback is that the movie does look terribly dated indeed and will remind you that the seventies really was a black decade for taste. Nonetheless , totally enjoyable.If you like this keep your eyes open for FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE , which is from the same Amicus stable and is very similar in style. It does the rounds on the TCM cable channel and is just as good as this.