Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Dr. Terror's House of Horrors Blu-ray Movie Review

Isn't it actually a train?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 27, 2015

Amicus may be Latin for friend, but considering the sort of company that can show up in certain Amicus Films, some cynics might be trotting out that old adage, “with friends like these, who needs enemies?” While a lot of film fans tend to automatically think of Hammer when asked to define the British horror film, Amicus was its own quite distinctive contributor as well, offering a number of portmanteau entries that typically presented several stories nested within an overarching plot conceit which (ostensibly at least) knitted everything together. (It should be noted that while Amicus did business in England, it was actually the brainchild of expat Americans.) Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors was the first Amicus portmanteau, and in some ways it’s one of the more effective ones, offering a quintet of Twilight Zone-esque tales, each with a twist (of course), which then fold over into a coda which itself offers a (none too surprising) “sting”. The framing device utilized here is a simple train trip, where a bunch of strangers are holed up together in one car. A mysterious man named Dr. Schreck (Peter Cushing) is the last to arrive, and he seems strangely knowledgeable about the other passengers. That knowledge is perhaps of the occult variety, as the good (?) doctor is soon proffering his Tarot deck, getting each of his fellow passengers to tap the deck three times, which is the first step toward Schreck giving each man a “fortune telling” reading of sorts, though considering the upshot of each of these tales, it might be more accurate to call them a misfortune telling.

Anyone who has ever had their house remodeled can probably relate at least a story or two about the process which some cynics might classify as the makings of a good horror film, and the first vignette in Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors does indeed revolve around a proposed refurbishment of a tony Scottish estate. Architect Jim Dawson (Neil McCallum) has been invited back to his childhood home on an isolated island, ostensibly to do repairs and updates for the home’s new owner, a widow named Mrs. Biddulph (Ursula Howells). Suffice it to say the project doesn’t go exactly as planned, and when Dawson discovers a body behind a wall, The Cask of Amontillado style. That event turns out to be something of a misdirection, allowing the story to ostensibly move one way when a (frankly not completely surprising) denouement reveals that Dawson’s involvement in the project is perhaps less felicitous than originally thought. As with all the other vignettes in the film, the framing sequences end with Dr. Schreck pulling a final fifth card which supposedly augurs the person’s ultimate fate, and it’s not exactly a shock that the card pulled is repeatedly Death.

The second tale is a bit sillier, hampered by some goofy “special effects” that are probably more funny than they are scary. Bill Rogers (Alan Freeman) is perplexed upon returning from a vacation to see a pesky new plant growing next to his home, and his attempts at husbandry (in the traditional sense) go nowhere, as the seemingly self sentient weed becomes more and more of a menace. There’s less of a “sting” to this vignette than in some of the others in the film, and indeed this particular story never quite achieves the spookiness that some of the others in the portmanteau manage to.

The slightness continues with the next story, though in this case it’s probably a bit more intentional. A jazz musician named Biff Bailey (Roy Castle) gets a gig in the West Indies, where he’s intrigued by a supposed voodoo tune, purloining it and turning it into one of his featured pieces. That doesn’t sit well with the spirits, not to mention an adherent of the “religion” who chases Biff back to London to get his royalties (or something like that). This vignette is played mostly for laughs, but they’re often kind of cheap ones, and while kind of stupidly enjoyable, this story tends to defeat any pretenses toward really scaring the audience.

The next story is probably the highlight of the film, though it is obviously more than a bit reminiscent of the hoary old classic The Beast with Five Fingers. Christopher Lee portrays uppity art critic Franklyn Marsh, whose trenchant observations have made him the bane of painter Eric Landor’s (Michael Gough) existence. Interestingly, both of the main characters here are shown to be curs in a way, and the showdown between them may leave some viewers rooting for one or the other in about equal measure. One way or the other, events lead to the disembodiment of Landor’s hand, at which point the real mayhem begins. Lee is engagingly truculent throughout this story, and the effects with the severed hand are quite good as well.

The last vignette might more appropriately be called Night Gallery- esque rather than Twilight Zone-ish, since it’s relatively brief and ends on a somewhat lighthearted note that boils down to a horror film punch line. The story follows the travails of Dr. Bob Carroll (Donald Sutherland), who is led by a colleague of his named Dr. Blake (Max Adrian) to believe that Carroll’s luscious new French wife Nicolle (Jennifer Jayne) might be a vampire. This final “episode” is resolutely silly but may provide at least a bit of whimsy for some viewers.

After all five fortunes have been detailed, the film then lapses into a fairly wrote wrap up which reveals one final (supposed) twist. That ostensible surprise may be completely predictable from almost the get go, but it’s handled in a nicely gothic manner that at least sends the viewers out into the cold autumn night with a bit of an inner chill as well.

Dr. Terror's House of Horrors Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Dr. Terror's House of Horrors is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. A lot of this transfer looks rather good, with a generally healthy palette, well resolved grain structure and very good detail levels, if an at times just slightly soft appearance. There are some anomalies, however, including a kind of odd looking "voodoo" sequence that is noticeably softer and grainier than the rest of the presentation, and which also suffers from fringing as well as registration and alignment issues (see screenshots 13-15 for some examples). This is a rather handsomely mounted film, and the first vignette especially benefits from a nicely gothic ambience that is drenched in shadow, an approach which is certainly appropriately moody, but which can diminish detail levels at times.

Dr. Terror's House of Horrors Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Dr. Terror's House of Horrors features a fine sounding DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track, one which more than adequately supports what is in essence a dialogue driven film. There are surprisingly few startle effects in the film, and so dynamic range is a bit more restrained than in more hyperbolic horror outings, but dialogue comes through cleanly and clearly at all times and Elisabeth Lutyens' evocative score also sounds clear and precise. The voodoo sequence also includes some crisp sounding jazz courtesy of the then popular Tubby Hayes group.

Dr. Terror's House of Horrors Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements of any kind on this Blu-ray disc.

Dr. Terror's House of Horrors Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

That joke above about the "house" actually being a "train" ignores the fact that Schreck refers to his Tarot deck as his horrific domicile, but the conceit of a gaggle of guys in a train car suffices as well as anything to establish the baseline for a hit and miss aggregation of vignettes. The first and fourth entries are probably the standouts here, while the other three are not quite as well realized and tend at times to lapse into pure silliness. The film is briskly paced by genre stalwart Freddie Francis, and there's a nice mood of uneasiness that wafts through the entire enterprise. Recommended.