GL84 Entering a carnival attraction, five customers enter and have a carnival barker reveal their futures, hoping it will help them mend their ways.The Good Stor(ies): Enoch-Summoned out to meet him, a man finds his nearly-dead father hoarding cash, but before he reveals the location, passes on. Spending the night before the funeral, he searches the house systematically for the treasure, eventually finding it in the basement guarded by a devilish cat intent on seeing how far he will go to earn it. This was a highly enjoyable tale that really works. The Gothic atmosphere in the basement, with it's dirt-covered surroundings, coffin and the design of the rooms, are all fantastic and the interplay with the cat is fun. It's the greatest part, as the torture is fun and unnerving, with the final resolution to it all quite chilling. The murders are relatively bloodless, except for the last aftermath shot, but are rather brutal in execution and overall it's quite enjoyable.The Man Who Collected Poe-Meeting at an auction, two friends find a shared bond over a love of Edgar Allen Poe's work. Taking up an invitation to visit his house, he shows him his collection of Poe memorabilia, including many rare and hard-to-find pieces. When he's shown completely new and unknown works, he questions where they came from and finds an answer he wasn't expecting at all. This was a great way to end it all, with a strong showing that works well in here. The love affair is really shown through, with the basement scenes being absolutely prime material. Despite feeling entirely creepy on it's own, there's a big feeling to it that comes from how the artifacts are displayed out, and it's just a strong segment. The ending is Gothic horror at it's best, with the dusty bookshelves, littered surroundings, candle-lit passageways and the creepy realization of what's going on, ending in a climatic blaze with an absolute blast of a twist. This is a rather fantastic segment.The Bad Stor(ies): Terror Over Hollywood-Struggling to break into the movies, an actress and her roommate try to further her acting career with an important dinner. Accidentally ruining her chances, she goes out on the dinner instead and is offered the role, only for the original leading man to wind up murdered. When he returns to the film without a scratch on him, she discovers the real reason why stars never seem to age. There's really only a few moments of horror, all of which are contained at the end with the revelation about what's going on. Once they return to the set, it's all quite good, but unfortunately, what happens before is utter boredom brought about by the dullness of the rest of the segment showcases to set up it's twist. This has been done better in other segments, and is easily skip-able.Mr. Steinway-Arriving at his house, a woman finds that a reclusive piano prodigy is just as smitten with him as he is with her, despite his reluctance to spend time together. Rubbing off the feelings, they continue to see each other only to keep getting the feeling that something is wrong. Blaming it on the piano, she refuses to believe it until it starts to prove his stories true. There's again very little to like here, most of which is based around the final piano attack, which here is really incredible and well-done. The rest of the segment, though, is merely too short to mean anything or done in a haphazard way. The central idea is laughable and consists merely to find ways of getting the piano lid to slam loudly, which is all the segment has. Easily skip-able.Today's Rating/PG-13: Violence.

ShadeGrenade 'Torture Garden' ( 1967 ) doesn't feature a garden, much less any torture. It was the second horror anthology produced by Amicus following 'Dr.Terrors House Of Horrors' ( 1964 ), inspired by the Ealing classic 'Dead Of Night' ( 1945 ). Whereas the former movie was scripted by co-producer Milton Subotsky, 'Garden' was based on stories by Robert Bloch, author of 'Psycho'. A group of assorted people visit a macabre fairground attraction - 'Torture Garden' - where they meet 'Dr.Diabolo' ( Burgess Meredith ), an odd little man who promises to reveal their futures to each of them in turn. All they have to do is stand before a waxwork of Atropos - The Goddess Of Destiny ( Clytie Jessop ) - and all will be revealed.Colin Williams ( the excellent Michael Bryant ) murders his rich uncle Roger ( Maurice Denham ) and is then plagued by a strange cat called Balthazar which keeps ordering him to kill.Sexy aspiring starlet Carla Hayes ( Beverly Adams ) uncovers the existence of a secret Hollywood elite - movie stars who have preserved their good looks by being turned into robots by Dr.Heim ( Bernard Kay ). Rather than kill her to keep her quiet, Heim gives her the same treatment.Dorothy Endicott ( Barbara Ewing ) becomes secretary to a world-famous pianist ( John Standing ), only to fall in love with him, incurring the wrath of his deceased mother who has been reincarnated - if you can believe this - as a piano.Ronald Wyatt ( Jack Palance ) is an avid book collector, in particular the works of Edgar Allan Poe. He visits fellow collector - Launcelot Canning ( Peter Cushing ) at his Maryland home, and finds a veritable shrine to the late author ( I bet Canning has copies of the Roger Corman/Vincent Price A.I.P. movies stashed away somewhere ). Finding unpublished works on modern paper, Wyatt demands to know where they came from. The answer is startling. Canning has managed to resurrect Poe from the dead...Once the stories are over, there is a final twist concerning the true identity of Dr.Diabolo.This is not a bad collection, at times it resembles the Hammer television series 'Journey To The Unknown'. As is usually the case in movies such as this, the stories themselves are a mixed bag - the first and last ones are the best, while the third is absolute rubbish ( if you can restrain yourself from laughing as Barbara Ewing is murdered by a piano, you're made of stronger stuff than I am ). Story number two is 'Twilight Zone' style science fiction, and sticks out like a sore thumb. The last one is my favourite, with Palance hamming it up as a man obsessed with Edgar Allan Poe. You can feel his envy as Canning shows him round his private collection. Cushing is, as ever, excellent. And good old Penguin himself ( Burgess Meredith ) is always watchable.'Atropos' appears in all four stories - keep an eye out for her.Bloch wrote two more movies in similar vein for Amicus - 'The House That Dripped Blood' ( 1970 ) and 'Asylum' ( 1971 ).

MartinHafer This is a horror anthology and it has a very interesting premise binding the various episodes together. The film begins in some sort of sideshow tent. Burgess Meredith is dressed in a somewhat demonic looking outfit and is showing the crowd a trick involving an electric chair. It's all pretty cheesy, but he promises the crowd REALLY INTENSE thrills in the next room--if they are willing to pay the very steep admission price. They agree and at first are disappointed. However, one by one, he reveals to them their future--what COULD be if they do not heed his warning. In a creepy touch, he privately burns their money--and so it's obvious he's not in it to get rich. What ARE his motivations and who is this weirdo?! The first story involves a man who is greedy and can't wait for his rich uncle to die. In fact, he expedites matters when he withholds his sick uncle's medicine--as he coldly watches the sad man die. But the nasty nephew has no idea where the old guy's stash of gold coins lie--and he spends much of his time searching. However, when an other-worldly cat shows up, you learn the truth (and it creeped me out, as the cat looked like both of my cats!)--and it's naturally a nasty one! The next involves a passive-aggressive lady. You see that this is the case when she deliberately scorches her roommate's dress and claims it is an accident. It appears that the nasty lady is an aspiring actress and she did this in order to steal the roommate's date--some big-wig in the movie industry. And, when on this date, she dumps this guy in favor of another Hollywood player--someone with more power to make her famous. Talk about a conniver! But where this goes next is REALLY weird--and you've just gotta see this one! The third is about a lady who is a reporter who has come to interview a famous concert pianist. He is an odd-ball, as he has named his piano 'Euterpe' and talks to it like it's alive. And, eventually the piano tells him to have nothing to do with her--she is getting in the way of their art. It's pretty goofy and much weaker than the previous wonderful vignettes.The next story features two big-name actors--Jack Palance and Peter Cushing (famous for his many horror film appearances). Both are book collectors who love the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Cushing invites Palance to visit his home--a place that is a shrine to the great writer. It's filled with various valuable Poe artifacts (including a hand-written unpublished story) and the place looks a bit like a spook house. Unfortunately for Palance, he's WAYYY too curious and ends up learning too much about Cushing's collection as well as Poe.The final person is unwilling to learn about his future--mostly because he seems scared of what he'll see. Instead, he attacks Meredith and scares most the patrons off--as they run in horror. Then the twist...All in all, it's a fun and somewhat silly sort of anthology. The first two were clearly the best but even the worst one was worth seeing. Too bad Meredith didn't make a follow-up film!

Witchfinder General 666 Amicus is legendary for producing a variety of Horror omnibuses in the 60s and 70s, such as "Dr. Terror's House of Horror" (1965), "The House That Dripped Blood" (1970), "Asylum" (1972), "From Beyond The Grave" (1973) or "The Vault of Horror" (1973). After "Dr Terror's House of Horrors", "Torture Garden" of 1967 was the second Horror anthology produced by Amicus, but, besides the very lame "Monster Club" (1980) which was barely saved by the great Vincent Price, it is also the least recommendable one. This is not to say that "Torture Garden" is a bad film though - on the contrary, it is vastly entertaining if one is looking for cheesy spooky fun, it just isn't scary, and I would recommend all the other Amicus anthologies I've seen (except for "Monster Club") over this one."Torture Garden" begins in an amusement park, where Dr. Diablo (Burgess Meredith) performs a macabre show. After seeing such spectacles as wax puppets executed on the electric chair, the visitors of Dr. Diablo's show (one of them played by Jack Palance!) are invited to experience 'real' terror - a foresight in their possible futures... Overall, the film has a nice atmosphere, but too little suspense. The first three stories are pretty forgettable, especially the second is extremely silly and not even remotely scary. It is merely the fourth story, Jack Palance's segment which also stars icon Peter Cushing, which saves the film.The first story takes place in an old mansion, where a man who is keen on his uncle's wealth encounters a sinister cat. The story is completely unoriginal, but at least it is macabre and has some atmosphere. The second story, which revolves around a girl who wants to become famous in the film business, and the third story, which is about an 'eerie' piano, are really, REALLY silly, even though I won't deny that the third one has some atmosphere too.It is merely the very moody, creepy and macabre fourth tale which makes this film worth watching. The last and best segment should be interesting to all Horror fans as it is a great little tale about the writings of the almighty Edgar Allen Poe, starring Jack Palance, and the great Peter Cushing, both of whom play fanatic Poe-collectors...The last segment is creepy and great and would easily deserve a rating of 8 out of 10, but, overall, one good segment does not quite make up for three cheesy and amusing, but mediocre ones. "Torture Garden" is entertaining enough for fans of Horror omnibuses, but I'd recommend most other Amicus anthologies (especially the excellent "House That Dripped Blood") over this one. Positive points are a nice atmosphere and look, but overall "Torture Garden" is just OK.