Tales from the Crypt (1971)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Tales from the crypt |
| Original title | Tales from the Crypt |
| Country of production | United Kingdom |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1972 |
| length | 87 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Freddie Francis |
| script | Milton Subotsky |
| production | Milton Subotsky Max J. Rosenberg |
| music | Douglas Gamley |
| camera | Norman Warwick |
| cut | Teddy Darvas |
| occupation | |
|
prolog
Silent night, bloody night
Reflection of death
Poetic justice
Three wishes
Sharp passage
epilogue
| |
Tales from the Crypt (OT: Tales from the Crypt ) is a 1971 British horror episode film directed by Freddie Francis . The leading roles are Sir Ralph Richardson , Ian Hendry , Peter Cushing , Joan Collins , Richard Greene and Nigel Patrick . The individual episodes were based on short stories written by Al Feldstein, Johnny Craig, William M. Gaines, Graham Ingels and George Evans.
action
prolog
Five people - Joanne Clayton, Carl Maitland, James Elliot, Ralph Jason, and Major William Rogers - are separated from their group during a tour of ancient catacombs. Looking for an exit, they meet the keeper of the crypt, who tells them that each of them will die soon. Then the individual stories begin, each focusing on one of the tourists who have been lost in the crypt.
Silent Night, Bloody Night (Original: ... And All Through the House )
Christmas is just around the corner, and Joanne Clayton has everything ready for the holiday ... for the perfect murder of her husband in the middle of Christmas night. The nefarious lady is after the fat life insurance of her unloved and much older husband. But not only Santa Claus grazes around the house of the black widow, but also a psychopathic serial killer in Santa Claus costume, who in turn is after Joanne's worthless life. Joanne finds herself in a terrible predicament: she sees the madman at the front door and still cannot call the police because she has a corpse at home under the decorated Christmas tree that cannot be hidden so quickly. Joanne is under enormous time pressure: she tries to remove the corpse and clean up the crime scene before finally calling the police. When in the meantime her little daughter Carol sees Santa Claus sneaking around in front of the door, she opens the front door for him beaming with joy, and the misfortune takes its course. Hardly in the house, the sinister murderer begins to strangle Joanne ...
Reflection of Death (Original: Reflection of Death )
Carl Maitland left his family to start a new life with young Susan Blake. A serious accident occurs while driving together. When he wakes up in the wrecked car, his life becomes a nightmare between appearance and reality. Carl tries to hitchhike home. Everyone he meets from now on looks at him with great horror. Back at home, Maitland realizes that the abandoned wife is having fun with another man. Carl knocks on the front door, but after his wife has opened it, she is scared to death at the sight of him, screams and slams the door in his face. A little later Maitland has to find out that his lover Susan has been blinded by the accident. She tells him that Carl died in an accident two years ago. Obviously, Carl is just a horribly disfigured ghost haunted by an in-between world. When a table top reflects his face, Maitland recognizes a half-rotten, horribly disfigured being, more corpse than human. Terrified by his own appearance, he utters a piercing scream. As a result, he wakes up and finds that it was all just a ghastly dream. At that moment, however, the terrible car accident happens ...
Poetic Justice (Original: Poetic Justice )
Old Arthur Grimsdyke, a widowed garbage man, is goodness in person, who does not mean harm to anyone. He owns a number of dogs and is passionate about looking after the others' children who live in the neighborhood. The absolute opposite of him are father and son Elliot, two arrogant snobs who hate anything to do with Mr. Grimdyke. Edward Elliott is quite wealthy and his son James is a disgusting, arrogant snob who loathes the old Grimdyke for no reason. Both look down on the hobbyist of toys and with the attitude of upper-class snobbies consider him an eyesore in this area. The Elliots really try to bullied the elderly gentleman out of the area, but Grimsdyke does not want to sell his house, as many memories of the happy years together with his deceased wife are attached to it.
The Elliots now want to take tougher measures to ruin systematically where she wants to tell the parents of the neighborhood kids the good reputation of friendly man, the old man could be a child molester, Grimsdyke withdraw his beloved dogs, and finally drive him with threatening letters precisely on Valentine's Day in the Suicide. But this crime does not go unpunished, and on next Valentine's Day James Elliot awaits a ghastly greeting from the afterlife in the form of Mr. Grimsdyke, who, as a zombie-like revenant, takes bloody revenge on the young creep. The next morning, Edward Elliot discovers his dead son with a poetic note on his side: “Happy Valentine's Day. You were mean and cruel from the start, now you really don't have… ”Edward unfolds the note to the end and sees with horror the still pounding heart, torn from James' body, which is also the last word of the Valentine's greeting from beyond.
Three wishes (Original: Wish You Were Here )
The businessman Ralph Jason has little luck in his ventures. He is already on the verge of financial ruin. One day his wife Enid discovers a Chinese statuette that fulfills three wishes for anyone who has it. In view of the financially tight situation, Enid initially decides on a large fortune as his first wish - and lo and behold: the wish comes true. But when husband Ralph drives to a lawyer's office, he allegedly dies in a car accident. However, the lawyer makes it clear to Enid that she will still be able to receive the prophesied fortune, because this fortune results from her husband's life insurance, the premium of which can now be paid to her after Ralph's death. But Enid hadn't thought it that way, and so she wishes with the second wish that her Ralph shouldn't be killed in this car accident. This wish is also granted, but Ralph remains dead because it turns out that it was not the impact that killed him, but a heart attack that happened to him immediately before. This heart attack knocked him down because shortly before Ralph had made out the grimace of skeletal death in the rearview mirror on a motorcycle chasing him. And so Enid's third wish now goes on: This time she wishes that he should live forever. But her husband was embalmed and would only walk through time and space as a living mummy. To save him this fate, Enid tries to kill Jason Ralph out of sheer mercy. But that is exactly what Enid had made impossible with her last wish, and so Ralph Jason is forever trapped in his terrible condition.
Sharp passage (Original: Blind Alley )
Major William Rogers has been appointed the new director of an institution for the blind called "Blind Alley". Its elderly and frail inmates are mostly men, for whom the hard-hearted officer makes life difficult. In order to keep costs low and profits high, he follows a strict austerity course: Meals are limited to the bare minimum and the room temperatures are kept nice and low, while Rogers and his German shepherd Shane dine with a warm fireplace and good wine - and everything else too lets go well. Complaints about this, such as those from George Carter, resident for the blind, are deliberately ignored by the major. It comes as it should: one day one of the residents dies of hypothermia. Deeply bitter, George teams up with other residents to devise an elaborate plan of revenge. The home workers are overwhelmed and Major Rogers and his German Shepherd Shane are captured and locked in separate rooms in the basement until they are both starved. What master and beast do not initially know is that both rooms are connected by a meandering narrow corridors. However, these connecting paths are peppered with sharp razor blades. When Rogers' door is unlocked after a few days, he has to feel his way through the razor-razed maze in the dark. At that moment, Carter turns the lights back on from outside so Major can see what is causing him such devilish pain. Major Rogers comes across Shane, who is also starving and has mutated into a wild beast in the past few days. He threatens his master, and the director of the institution escapes through the eponymous "sharp passage" back to his cell, again in the dark because Carter has switched off the light again in his thirst for revenge. At last you only hear the screams of Rogers when his own dog attacks him.
epilogue
After the last story has been told, the keeper of the crypt informs his perplexed guests against their will that these stories are not a foresight of what will happen, but that the events described have long since happened. All five evildoers have already died “without remorse”. The gate to Hell opens and Joanna, Carl, James, Ralph and Major Rogers have to go through. "And who is it next?" asks the keeper of the crypt cryptically and turns to the cinema audience: "Maybe you?" Then the film closes as the entrance to the crypt hiding place is immersed in an infernal sea of flames.
Production notes
Tales from the Crypt began on September 13, 1971 and was premiered on March 8, 1972. The film premiered in Germany on January 18, 1973. As a result of the great box-office success, there was another corresponding cinema episode film called Vault of Horror , which was released in Germany under the title In der Schlinge des Teufels .
Charles W. Fries took over the production management. Tony Curtis designed the film structures.
The principle of horror episodes shown in this omnibus film was so successful that almost two decades later it was decided to go into (TV) series with it under the same title .
synchronization
| role | actor | Voice actor |
|---|---|---|
| Keeper of the crypt | Ralph Richardson | Konrad Wagner |
| Arthur Edward Grimsdyke | Peter Cushing | Martin Rosen |
| Joanne Clayton | Joan Collins | Dinah Berger |
| Ralph Jason | Richard Greene | Martin Hirthe |
| Carl Maitland | Ian Hendry | Friedrich W. Building School |
| Major William Rogers | Nigel Patrick | Klaus Miedel |
| Charles Gregory | Roy Dotrice | Friedrich Georg Beckhaus |
| Edward Elliot | David Markham | Jürgen Thormann |
| James Elliot | Robin Phillips | Andreas Mannkopff |
| Susan Blake | Angie Grant | Almut Eggert |
Reviews
“Five stories of horror involving deception, mutilation and some well-timed laughs. Nonetheless, nothing special. "
"Weak horror episodes based on the legendary EC comics."
"Sufficiently macabre fun."
On filmtipps.at it says “Long before the TV series and George Romero's CREEPSHOW, the great competitors and episodic horror film specialists of Amicus Bill Gaines' famous EC comics and the STORIES FROM THE GRUFT with Freddie Francis in the director's chair and Peter Cushing was brought to the big screen for the first time in the star line-up. Five macabre episodes (a strong opening, twice nice and twice good) with the usual bitter end points are given for the best. "
Individual evidence
- ^ Stories from the crypt in the German dubbing index
- ^ Stories from the Crypt in the Lexicon of International Films , accessed on December 1, 2018
- ↑ Stories from the crypt on filmtipps.at
Web links
- Tales from the Crypt in the Internet Movie Database (English)