I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

Old Movies Revisited Just For The Fun Of It

Dr. Terror's House Of Horrors (1965)

If this movie sounds awfully familiar to one I did a little bit ago called Tales From The Crypt it's probably because this was the first of an anthology of films in this vein. The formula is basically the same, just the particulars are changed. We have three big names here: Peter Cushing (sticking around this time, not like in Scream And Scream Again), Christopher Lee and a very young Donald Sutherland (Kiefer has always been cute and everything but his dad was, is and always will be a very handsome man). The only problem I really had was the title - there is no Dr. Terror, no House of Horrors. The only thing remotely relating to the title is that the Doc's name, Schreck, is a German word for horror.... that's it.

Pick a card, any card, oops you're dead.

Five strangers board a train and end up in the same car. In walks Dr. Schreck (Peter Cushing) who sits with them. While they sit there, he's playing with an old pack of Tarot cards. Oh, this should be good. Sure enough, he considers himself a bit of a fortune teller and offers to tell each man their future. All resist, but one by one they find themselves too curious about what he has to say. Thus starts their stories (no titles for these so they are numbered):

1. Jim Dawson is an architect who travels to a Scottish island to renovate a house he used to own but sold. The new owner says she's a widow seeking solitude following the death of her husband. While checking out the basement, Jim finds fresh plaster on a false wall that breaks easily. Inside is a coffin. It is of the Count Cosmo Valdemar who owned the house but was killed by Jim's ancestors and had vowed revenge. Like a movie-idiot he opens the damn thing finding, gee whiz, a moldy corpse. An employee describes how the Count had vowed to someday return to solid form and take his revenge on the owner of the house. The first to die: the house maid. He hears and sees a wolf bolting for the basement, but the coffin is again shut tight by the time he gets there. He then takes a silver cross belonging to his family to make bullets from. Waiting that night by the widow's side to defend her, sure enough the wolf comes. He shoots six times, no effect. He can't understand it - silver bullets kill werewolves. "You mean these?" says the widow, emptying her hand of the silver bullets hidden there. The true vow was that the Count would come back and avenge himself on the descendant of the one who killed him, not the owner. The widow is actually the Count's wife. Too late he realizes he's doomed as the werewolf...

I die too? But I'm the cute one!

The movie pops back to the train. Jim asks Dr. Schreck to see the final card in his future. It is Death but the doc doesn't show him. He instead invites someone else to try.

2. Bill Rogers and his family are returning from vacation only to discover a fast-growing vine has installed itself in the garden. When the plant seems to respond violently to attempts to cut it down, Bill goes to the Ministry of Defence (we just have a noxious weed board), where he gets advice from a couple of scientists. It soon turns out that the plant has become intelligent, and harbors homicidal tendencies towards any threats to its existence. It kills the family dog, kills one of the scientists and surrounds the house. The other scientist gets out by using fire, but the 'vine' puts the small fire out and then...

The movie pops back to the train. Bill asks Dr. Schreck to see the final card in his future. It is Death but the doc doesn't show him. He instead invites someone else to try. Yes, this is the pattern of the film, get used to it.

3. Biff Bailey is a jazz trumpet player (oh boy) who goes with his band to the West Indies (okay folks, this is going to be about voodoo). He listens to the 'groovy sound' of a local voodoo ceremony and writes musical notes down to play it himself. A Houngan (male voodoo priest) becomes enraged and tells him that the God Damballa would destroy him if he stole his music. Bill goes home and writes a composition anyway. When the band plays it in London, a strong wind stirs up and wrecks the club. Despite this, he wants to refine the melody and play it again, despite the warnings of the singer in the group about messing with voodoo. As he works with it at home, the Houngan appears and... doesn't have to do anything because Biff faints and he just takes the sheet music away from him...

The movie pops back to the train. Biff asks Dr. Schreck to see the final card in his future. It is Death but the doc tries to hide it. This time the men grab his hand and turns the card. They realize they have all gotten the Death card.

4. Franklin Marsh is next. He's been scoffing the whole time at the charlatan in the car with them, saying it's a bunch of nonsense. But after their stories he reluctantly agrees to hear his. Franklin (Christopher Lee) is an art critic who loves to trod on the feelings and reputations of the artists he criticizes. After he spectacularly duns one painter, Eric Landor, Landor's assistant brings out a new painting she says was just commissioned and asks Franklin's opinion. He gives it the highest praise and wants to meet the artist. The artist is a chimpanzee. 

Of course he is totally humiliated. After that, Landor appears everywhere Franklin goes, just to rattle him and keep him from functioning as a critic. One night Franklin waits until he sees Landor crossing the street and runs him down with his car, crushing his right hand. Landor wakes to find his hand gone and his career over. He kills himself. Soon after, the (dum dum dum) RIGHT HAND OF LANDOR (sorry, trying to make it sound dramatic) pursues and attacks him several times and despite trying to get rid of it, it appears on his windshield one rainy night, causing him to smash his car. You know how this ends. He's alive, but now he's blind - no more career for him either.

The movie pops back to the train. Franklin can't believe this is going to happen to him and  after seeing the Death card says none of them have a future. But they have one more story.

5. Dr. Bob Carroll (Donald Sutherland) returns to his home in the United States with his new French bride. But his bride seems to have a taste for blood, and soon a small boy starts getting ill. His bedroom window is kept open every night and there are puncture wounds on his neck. Soon there is evidence that a vampire is on the loose, and Bob seeks the aid of his colleague Dr. Blake only to find out that his bride is the vampire. Following Blake's advice, Bob kills her. But when the police come to arrest Bob under the charge of his wife's murder, Blake denies giving any such advice (which is just how Malenka: The Niece Of The Vampire was supposed to be). When the police drive off with Bob, Blake breaks the fourth wall, telling us that there was not enough room in the city for two doctors -  or two vampires. He then turns into a bat.

The movie pops back to the train. Bob also gets the Death card and all realize none have a future. They demand to know Dr. Schreck's future - it is also the Death card. So they realize they may die in a train wreck, panic, but then all are all relieved when it safely stops.

Nice to meet you... won't you guess my name? No, it's not that.

From the Tarot cards, the doc tells them that the only way they can avoid these horrible destinies is by dying first. The men find a newspaper that confirms that yes, they did die in a train wreck and Dr. Schreck turns around. He is Death.

Nothing shocking or surprising, just the kind of spooky stories popular with this particular series. Good acting all around in this one.