The Skull (1965)

Directed by: Freddie Francis

Even though Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing made a lot of movies together for Hammer Films my favorites are the ones that was made for other companies. Their best, in my opinion, is Horror Express, but this might just be my second favorite with the gruesome twosome that was Lee and Cushing. The Skull was made by Amicus and the more I watch the Amicus movies the more I feel that they were really up there with Hammer when it comes to making great atmospheric horror movies. I've always held Hammer as the best by far and then Amicus and Tigon and companies like that... nah, screw that, Amicus were just as good as Hammer and this movie is one of many proofs of that.

The DVD (released by Paramount / Legend Films) lacks when it comes to extras and this is not really a review of the DVD, but I just wish that they could drag Christopher Lee into a studio and have him record commentary tracks for every damn movie he's made while there's still time. Even though his part in this movie is pretty small (he's billed as a guest star) I would have loved to listen to him talk about the movie and his work with Peter Cushing... well, a guy can dream, can't he?


The film starts in the 1800's and a cemetary where a man is having a grave dug up and he hacks off the head of the corpse lying in that grave. He brings the head back home with him and into his bathroom where he strips it of its flesh, but moments later his mistress finds him drowned in his bathtub and the skull is sitting on a table facing the dead man.

We then jump circa 150 years into the present day (well, it was the present day when the movie was released) and at an auction we meet Dr. Christopher Maitland (Peter Cushing), an collector of occult stuff (and author of books dealing with the occult). Present at the auction is also Maitland's friend and fellow collector Sir Matthew Phillips (Christopher Lee), and when four small statues of different devils are up for bids they start a bidding war that ends when Phillips ups the price far beyond their worth. Maitland returns to his home where he is visited by Marco (Patrick Wymark), and unscrupulous antiques dealer. Marco has sold many things to Maitland in the past, but this time he feels he has some real good shit to sell him. Marco has brought with him a book, bound in human skin, that's about the life and death of the Marquis de Sade. Even though he at first doesn't seem that interested Maitland buys the book and is told that he will be offered something even greater the next evening...


The following evening Marco returns and this time he offers Maitland a skull, but it's just not any skull... it's the skull of the Marquis de Sade (the very same skull that was dug up in the beginning of the movie). Maitland doesn't jump on the chance of owning the skull of de Sade immediately though as Marco asks for too much money... that kind of cash needs some sleeping on. So, they decide that Maitland will come around Marco's place the next evening if he wants to buy the skull.

While visiting his friend Phillips, Maitland discovers that the skull was stolen from him and he really don't want it back. Phillips warns Maitland to buy it as it is an evil skull with powers to possess you during the first nights of the new moon... spooky stuff... Maitland returns back home where he later that night is visited by a couple of police men who are there to arrest him. They bring him to a strange house and a weirdo judge who forces him to play russian roulette before locking him up in a room that is filled with gas (this whole segment reminded me of the TV show The Prisoner for some reason, it has that strange weird feeling over it). And just then Maitland wakes up in a strange place he doesn't recognize... he's in the building Marco lives and when he enters Marco's apartment to talk about the skull he finds Marco dead. But, before calling the cops he finds the skull and hides it in an hallway closet.


Later on when the cops are gone he returns for the skull, and while taking it from it's hiding place he runs into the building's caretaker which he pushes down the stairs to his death. The skull is already slowly taking over Maitland, who then breaks into Phillips' house to steal one of the small statues from the auction in the beginning of the movie... When he returns back home the skull wants him to kill his wife, but Maitland refuses to do it making the skull to go after him instead...

This here is a great movie, and I wonder why the hell I had never watched it before... I always go back to the great atmospheric Hammer horrors, but this one almost felt more like an Hammer film than the Hammer films themselves. This is how it should be done! Peter Cushing holds up the entire movie on his shoulders and he does it so well, the last 20 minutes or so has almost no dialogue and still he manages to crank out such a great performance. Christopher Lee is in only three scenes, but he is still very important to the plot and as always he shines in his part. I didn't even think about how little screen time he had as this truly felt like an Cushing/Lee movie all the way.

Freddie Francis also shines as the director, his use of strange angles adds to the weirdness that comes from the skull's powers. His skull point of view cam is also superb. Everything about this film felt just perfect to me, the library/study where Maitland is working is one of those places you just feel you want to visit for real and just sit there and read through all of those books. The attention to detail is wonderful... and one thing that probably isn't so perfect from the filmmaker's point of view just made my day, when the skull is flying through the house at the end the strings holding it up are clearly visible and I just LOVE that! Today it would of course have been done by using CGI (and Cushing's and Lee's roles would probably have been played by stupid teens from a soap opera or something), but this is how it should be... more visible strings!!!

This is a truly great movie that you should rather be watching right now instead of reading this shitty so called review!

Tales from the Crypt (1972)

Directed by: Freddie Francis

Being a big fan of Hammer Films it's easy to also have a soft spot for Amicus Productions as Amicus always felt like the poor man's Hammer. Not that their movies were not as good as Hammer's, as a lot of them were, but you get the feeling the company didn't really have the same budget as Hammer as most of their movies are set in a "modern" time instead of the usual Hammer period pieces. Another reason Hammer and Amicus go so well together is all the Hammer stars (both actors and directors) that worked for Amicus as well.

One thing that Amicus were really good at, and I don't think Hammer did any at all, are anthology movies. I like anthology movies as even at worse case scenario you usually get at least one great story... that's at least better than to have to suffer through a total snooze fest with no entertaining value at all. And when it comes to the Amicus anthology movies you usually get much more of the good than the bad.


And now, over to the movie: We start with some tourists visiting some catacombs somewhere in England, and while most of the tourists are following the guide five manage to get left behind and not finding a way out. That's until a door opens and they find a big room with five stone chairs in the middle - no one is there and they decide that this party really blows and head for the door when it slams shut and behind them a monk looking man appears. You never get to know who he is in the movie, but this is the Crypt Keeper - looking and sounding very different from the yattering pun machine that was presenting the Tales from the Crypt TV series in the 90's. He tells the five people that they need to see what he will show them and here's where the short movies within the movie starts...


First out is ...And All Through the House, and here we find Joanne (Joan Collins) celebrating Christmas by bashing her husband's head in... by being that naughty just around Christmas time you'd suspect that Joanne wouldn't get a visit from Santa Claus, but you're so wrong about that! While she's taking care of her hubby's dead body a radio announcement is letting us know that a man has escaped from the home of the criminally insane, and he is wearing a Santa costume. Of course he is headed straight for Joanne's house and starts to knock on the door trying to get in... Joanne would have been safe if it wasn't for her stupid daughter who thought that Santa should come inside the house instead of freezing outside. There's one reason why I really hate kids... retards!

Second out is Reflection of Death, and just as the first one this is kinda short (but that's a good thing as it's without a doubt the weakest of the lot). Here we have a guy called Carl (Ian Hendry) who abandons his wife and two kids for his mistress, while driving with her to their new home they get into a car crash. Carl is dragging himself from the scene of the crash looking for his mistress, but can't find her. So he decides to go back home to his wife again - who he freak the shit out when she opens the door (and strangely enough the name on the door is different now and she seems to have a new hubby... that's weird!), he keeps scaring people along the way (we only see things from his point of view) and ends up at his mistress' old apartment where she is living again. There he (and we) finally get a look of himself and it turns out the car crash happened two years ago and he's now a walking corpse... he wakes up screaming in the car (this was apparently just a dream) just about to be part of the same car crash he just dreamt about.


Third out is Poetic Justice, and here we have Peter Cushing playing an old gentle garbage man that some of his snobbish neighbors just can't stand. All because of what he's working with and that he is taking care of stray dogs (oh, the noise!) and is visited by the neighborhood's children (which he gives toys to, toys that he has found in the garbage and repaired). A father and son team from the other side of the street starts an smear campaign to get rid of the old man and first they have the police getting rid of his dogs. When that's not enough they imply to the children's parents that he might be a child molestor, so all the children are forbidden to go to him. Then they even manage to get him to lose his job, and when that's not enough they send him a lot of nasty Valentine cards on Valentine's Day. This last thing is too much for poor old Mr. Grimsdyke (Cushing) and he hangs himself... One year later he his back visiting his old neighbors though, and he leaves a Valentine card of his own...

The fourth story is Wish You Were Here, and this is a variant of the old "The Monkey's Paw" story. Be careful what you wish for, it just might come true! In this one we have a business man, Ralph Jason (Richard Greene), who is having financial troubles - luck have it that his wife spots a text on the bottom of a small statue in their home telling them about three wishes. Not that they believe in such things, but they do make a wish for money and ta-da! the phone rings and the money situation seems to be clearing up. But, on his way to his lawyer Ralph dies in a car crash - his wife desperately wants him back and makes another wish: to get him back as he was right before he crashed. Well, poor old Ralphie-boy died of a heart attack before the crash so he comes back to her in a coffin... So, she uses the third and last wish to make him alive now and forever as he was before he died. He comes back to life, but is screaming in pain due to having been embalmed... when his wife can't take his screams any more she uses a sword on him, chopping him to pieces and still he's screaming...


And the last story is Blind Alleys, and it takes place in a home for the blind, where Major William Rogers (Nigel Patrick) is the new director. Not knowing how to lead the blind he resorts to how he lead his men in the army and that might not be the best of ideas... he's also a cheap bastard taking away almost every little luxury thing the blind men enjoyed (like heat in the building, blankets, real food... you know, luxury stuff). When one of the blind dies from the cold the rest of them decides that enough is enough and lock the Major up in a small cell while they're doing some woodwork outside his door. When they finally open up his door he finds a small corridor that he needs to get through to get to safety... a corridor that has a shitload of razor blades stuck to the walls! And if that wasn't bad enough, they release the Major's now very hungry dog on him inside the corridor...

The movie ends with the Crypt Keeper letting us know why we have seen all of this and I'll let you find that out all by yourself... so find yourself a copy of this movie and watch it dammit!


Tales from the Crypt is based on an old comic book from the 50's with the same name, although some of the stories in this movie were taken from the magazine The Vault of Horror, which was published by the same people at the same time as Tales... The tone is quite dark in this movie, but with a dark sense of humor mixed in with the horror, just like the original magazines. And it works very well for me... This is not my favorite Amicus anthology movie (that honor goes to The House That Dripped Blood), but it's a damn fine one!

You get some great acting and the directing by Freddie Francis is flawless, we get the usual 70's style weird angles (which I love) and wild close ups (especially in the car crash in the second story). This a great example of classic early 70's british horror cinema with one of the greats, Peter Cushing. You can't go wrong with that! (and I must confess that I actually jumped up by something in the first story... yep, even yours truly can be scared by a movie ;-)).