Dr Terror's House of Horrors (1965)
 | Directed By: Freddie Francis |
| Written By: Milton Subotsky | |
| Starring: Christopher Lee, Neil McCallum, Peter Cushing ... | |
| Running Time: 98 min | |
| Release Date: 28/02/1965 | |
Availability:  | |
Internet Movie Database:  |
A mysterious man predicts horrible futures for five passengers on board a train ... in one story, an architect returns to his ancestoral home to find a werewolf out for revenge.
This film involved both director Freddie Francis and Peter Cushing, who would later join up with others of the ex-Hammer Studios crowd to make Legend of the Werewolf in 1975. It was written by Milton Subotsky, who produced The Beast Must Die in 1974.
Okay, five strangers assemble together and tell bizarre tales of their own haunted futures. It's something we've seen before, there was a movie made in 1945 called "Dead of Night" with basically the same premise, but that was a horror masterpiece, far ahead of it's time. This is nowhere near in the same league.
There's a werewolf story, a 'deadly plant' story, a voodoo story, a 'creeping hand' story and a vampire story. The stand-out segment is Christopher Lee's story as the art critic who is stalked by the severed hand of a man he ran over. It was later made as a feature-length Oliver Stone film called "The Hand", starring Michael Caine, but the idea was actually taken from an earlier movie in 1946 called "The Beast With Five Fingers". Oh, well.
It was made by what at the time was an all-star British cast containing Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and others of the Hammer Studios team, but this doesn't save it from being average at best. If you want a really great compilation horror film I recommend watching Dead of Night instead.
The "werewolf" segment of Dr Terror's House of Horrors is unfortunately probably the least interesting. It's a bit dull and slow moving, and with very few interesting ideas. It concerns an ancient curse, someone brought back to life after two centuries as a werewolf in order to seek revenge against a family who apparently stole his ancestral home. It's not a terrible idea, but ultimately not that memorable or well-executed. The director clearly has no interest in the werewolf genre. You barely see the wolf at all, just close-ups shots of the teeth in a couple of quick flashes. This is probably a good thing considering the budget ... but you really don't get an impression of the wolf's presence. It isn't helped by the cheesey acting and fact that the player's seem pretty bored with the dodgy script. The set pieces aren't bad, considering the whole thing was shot in a studio, as those days they simply couldn't afford to go on location in low-budget affairs such as this. |
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