13 Nights of Shocktober: From Beyond the Grave

by A.J.

Night 10: Anthology Horror Night

“All tastes catered for. Oh, and a big novelty surprise goes with every purchase.”

From Beyond the Grave

Horror anthologies, or portmanteau films, are maybe my favorite horror subgenre. Multiple stories of different kinds wrapped up for the price of one movie. Many horror stories, in fact most, no matter what kind (monsters, slashers, allegories, whathaveyou) work best in short form simply because there is less time to pick apart details or overthink a thin premise. In the late 1960’s and throughout the 1970’s the British production company Amicus specialized in horror anthologies. Their most famous film is Tales From the Crypt (1972). Their 7th and final production, From Beyond the Grave (1977) did not fare well at the time, but it is quite entertaining and makes for great spooky-not-scary Shocktober viewing. 

From Beyond the Grave has four separate stories following people who visit an antiques store run by none other than horror legend Peter Cushing. Each story is based on a short story by British author R. Chetwynd-Hayes and all have the same director, Kevin Connor, and cinematographer Alan Hume (later to shoot Return of the Jedi and A Fish Called Wanda), so they all have a similar aesthetic while also having just enough variety in tone to feel distinct. Every anthology movie winds up feeling uneven to a certain degree and From Beyond the Grave is no exception, but overall there is more to enjoy than not. 

The first story, “The Gate Crasher”, has David Warner purchasing an old spooky looking mirror. He has some friends over and one of them says the mirror looks like something a medium would have. This prompts someone to suggest they have a séance, so they do, because why not. This calls forth an evil spirit trapped in the mirror who hypnotizes Warner into luring people to his apartment and killing them. The premise feels familiar if you’ve seen enough horror movies but it’s a good start and probably the darkest of the four stories. 

The second story “An Act of Kindness” is probably the best of the four. It stars Ian Bannen as a put-upon office manager with an overbearing wife who befriends a peddler played by Donald Pleasence. The peddler invites the office manager to his flat for dinner and to meet his daughter (played by Pleasence’s real life daughter, Angela). Of course, the peddler and his daughter are not what they seem. This segment benefits from the added layer of the office manager seeming to be a proper gentleman but actually being an undignified, pathetic man (he steals a war medal to impress the peddler) and the lowly peddler actually have the dignity and self respect the office manager only pretends to have. It also benefits from a great performance from Donald Pleasence. This story ends with a twist that plays a bit like a joke and seems to come out of nowhere but it fits the tone of the story. 

The third story has a man switching the price tags on snuff boxes in Cushing’s store. On the train ride home a goofy psychic calling herself Madame Orloff (Margaret Leighton) claims that he has a nasty elemental on his shoulder and gives him her card. When he gets home the dog won’t stop barking at him and his wife gets mysterious scratches, so he calls Madame Orloff to perform an exorcism. The exorcism is Madame Orloff giving him an insane shoulder massage while objects fly around the house. This is clearly a comedy and is a nice tonal switch up.

The final story is relatively straightforward. A young man asks to buy the extremely spooky looking door with a scary gargoyle carving. It’s crazy that this guy wants this; it’s even behind stuff that Cushing has to move out of the way. Perhaps the craziest thing about this story is that the guy uses this door for a simple closet in his otherwise average looking house. Of course later when he opens the closet he finds a big abandoned room covered in layers of dust and cobwebs. The room holds the spirit of a 17th century warlock who needs a body to finish a ritual and escape into the real world. There is not a lot to this story but the old room, lit with an eerie blue light and covered in cobwebs provides a good spooky atmosphere. 

There isn’t anything in From Beyond the Grave that will make you jump or cover your eyes, and there are more than a few moments that will make you laugh or even giggle. However, each story works well on its own and also as part of a larger anthology of people getting more than they bargained for and sometimes deserving what they get. 

From Beyond the Grave airs on TCM on Wednesday, October 30th and 6:15AM CT.

13 Nights of Shocktober: Tales of Terror

by A.J. 

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. So, for the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some horror movie recommendations to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 11: Vincent Price & Roger Corman Night

“And it is with death and dying that we concern ourselves. What happens at the point of death? What happens afterwards? What happens after death to someone who does not choose to stay dead…”

Tales of Terror

Here are two of my favorite Shocktober subgenres in one movie: a Vincent Price-Roger Corman movie and a horror anthology. It gets even better. Tales of Terror is made up of three short films, each starring the great Vincent Price and each based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. I’m not sure it gets more Shocktober than this. Legendary B-movie producer-director Roger Corman made so many films of such wildly differing quality that you never know if you’re going to watch a quality entertaining picture or fodder for Mystery Science Theater 3000 or Rifftrax. Corman hit his stride in the early 1960’s with a cycle of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations starring Vincent Price. The best of these is The Masque of the Red Death (1964), probably the worst is The Raven (1963). Tales of Terror (1962) leans more toward The Masque of the Red Death on the Corman-Price spectrum. 

Each of the three stories is prefaced with a narration by Price and red silhouettes on a black screen hinting at the story to come. The first story, based on Morella, has a young woman, Lenora (Maggie Pierce), arriving at the dilapidated mansion of her long-estranged father, Locke (Price). Her mother, Locke’s beloved Morella, died in childbirth and he blamed and resented his daughter so much for “killing” Morella that he sent her away. He begins to open up to her but mysterious apparitions and Lenora’s own sickness intervene. It is a weird, creepy story that maintains a tone very much in keeping with Poe’s more melancholy, macabre stories. 

The second story is the standout of the anthology. In an impressive feat, it successfully combines Poe’s The Black Cat, The Cask of Amontillado, and even touches upon the Tell-Tale Heart. Of course, an adaptation of any Poe short story necessitates expanding the characters and plot. In a brilliant stroke, screenwriter Richard Matheson (writer of several The Twilight Zone episodes and author of I Am Legend) combines two stories with the same plot device (hiding a body behind a wall) and allows the expansion to come from Poe’s stories. The Black Cat is about a man who murders his wife and then must dispose of her body. In this short film, he murders her is because she was having an affair with his rival. The choice to make the man Montresor (Peter Lorre) and his rival Fortunato (Vincent Price) is such a smart one that it seems obvious. This is the comedic entry in the anthology and it blends comedy and the macabre well. The comedy doesn’t really kick in until Price makes his entrance and starts hamming it up as the vain and ridiculous Fortunato, a famous professional wine taster. Peter Lorre is great as Montresor, a down on his luck wine taster. They have a wine tasting duel which is pretty silly and very entertaining. Montresor is a mean drunk always in search of money but Lorre plays him as a buffoon. This doesn’t make him sympathetic but makes him a tolerable character, especially since you know he is headed for a comeuppance. 

The final installment is an adaptation of The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, not exactly a horror story but a macabre one. It involves a dying man, Valdemar (Price), hypnotized at the moment of death to allow for a more peaceful crossing into the afterlife. However, the hypnotist, Carmichael (Basil Rathbone), is a cruel and sinister man with designs on Valdemar’s soon to be widow, Helene (Debra Paget). Rathbone is most famous for playing Sherlock Holmes in a series of films in the 1940’s, but he is also great at playing a dastardly villain. This short departs the most drastically from Poe’s original work, involving a zombie of sorts, but the additions work and it provides a nice conclusion. 

Each of these tales plays like a daytime friendly Tales From the Crypt episode. They involve unsavory or cruel characters but the short length makes them easy watch. As with Corman’s other Poe adaptations, the period costumes and sets go a long way to creating atmosphere. Each of the characters Vincent Price plays are very different from each other, allowing him to show off his range and skill as an actor. In Morella he is a cruel, cold person haunted by heartbreak. In The Black Cat he is an immoral but ridiculous character. In the last story he is a kind, innocent old man, who, in a macabre way, ends up being a hero. Price is easily convincing in all three roles. One of the great things about Tales of Terror is it also has great roles for Peter Lorre and Basil Rathbone to show off and have fun. The special effects are dated but that is part of the atmosphere and appeal. These Vincent Price-Roger Corman movies are not scary, but they are spooky great fun to watch on any Shocktober night.

Tales of Terror is streaming on Amazon Prime Video and Paramount Plus.

13 Nights of Shocktober: Body Bags

 by A.J.

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some horror movie recommendations to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 9: Anthology Horror Night “Ah, body bags. You see, if it's murder, suicide or a nasty accident, they put them in here.” Body Bags

Body Bags is a 1993 anthology horror movie produced by Showtime. It was originally meant to be an anthology horror series, likely to compete with the hit HBO series Tales From the Crypt. When Showtime did not continue the series, the episodes that had already been filmed were put together and aired as a single movie. Regardless of the reason for its cancellation, Body Bags is an entertaining anthology film thanks to the talent involved. 

The setting is the overnight shift at a morgue where a ghoulish, corpselike coroner examines different body bags and shares the details behind the gruesome deaths. John Carpenter directed the first two stories and also plays The Coroner. You can’t help but compare him to the Crypt Keeper from Tales From the Crypt, even though one is a person in makeup and the other is a puppet. The Crypt Keeper is far more decayed and has a bigger personality but both are high energy characters that love death, gory details, and making jokes. There is hard rock music playing in the background of the interstitials with The Coroner and you can tell John Carpenter is having fun with the character.

In the first story, The Gas Station, Alex Datcher plays a young woman working the overnight shift at a gas station. At first she only has to deal with odd customers. Then she finds herself being stalked by a deranged psycho killer played by Robert Carradine. The second story, Hair, stars Stacey Keach as a man obsessed with stopping his hair loss. He seeks out a radical hair growth treatment that actually works but has sinister side effects. In the final story, Eye, directed by Tobe Hooper, Mark Hamill plays a baseball player that loses an eye in a car accident. He undergoes an experimental eye transplant but soon begins to have macabre and murderous visions.

Any horror anthology is likely to feel uneven and Body Bags is no exception. The Gas Station is a well-made but basic slasher story. It's not fresh but not stale either. Things pick up with Hair, which leans heavy into comedy. Naturally this story about a hair transplant gone wrong delves into body horror but it’s watchable because of its fun tone. Though it is not especially explicit with visual or makeup effects, it feels more graphic than it actually is due to the subject matter. Keach, who usually plays a heavy or tough guy, does a good job playing a lighter, insecure character. Eye is similar to The Gas Station in that it is a well-made short film that covers familiar territory, but this story is more of a psychological horror, with some gory effects too. The reason Eye holds together and feels as dramatic as it does is thanks to Mark Hamill’s solid performance. 

Body Bags uses some early CGI effects, which like most early CGI effects do not hold up, but the rest of the horror sights are practical visual effects and special makeup effects which go a long way. It might not be for everyone, either because of its light but macabre tone or the horror visuals, but it’s clear that Body Bags wants you to have as good a time as The Coroner is having. Watch for cameos and appearances by: Wes Craven, Sam Raimi, Debbie Harry, Twiggy, Tom Arnold, Charles Napier,  Tobe Hooper, David Naughton, David Warner, and legendary B-movie producer-director Roger Corman. I love horror anthologies but I’ll admit that most are made up of more misses than hits. Body Bags is better than most and makes for spooky fun Shocktober viewing.

13 Nights of Shocktober: Extraordinary Tales

by A.J.

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober.  So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some horror movie recommendations to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 12: Horror Anthology Night

Poe: “I want to be sure my words will survive me, that they will never be lost in time.”

Death: “That, my friend, Nevermore.”

Extraordinary Tales 

Adapting Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous and beloved works, his short stories and poems, to a feature length film is tricky and difficult. The short stories get padded out and, in some cases, only vaguely resemble their source material. Some of these are good but barely resemble the original story: The Black Cat (1934) has a black cat in one shot and a completely made up plot. Some are utter dreck: The Raven features a raven briefly and a plot about wizards and magic. And a few actually capture the events and the essence of the story, adding plot and characters that feel like an extension of the story, not extraneous additions: The Masque of the Red Death (1964), directed by Roger Corman and starring Vincent Price, which I’ve written about for a previous Shocktober and highly recommend. To adapt Poe’s stories without added plot or characters could only be done with short films, or an anthology.

The stories of Poe and the anthology film format are such a perfect combination I’m surprised there aren’t more Poe based anthology films, or at least more noteworthy ones. The animated anthology Extraordinary Tales, written and directed by Raul Garcia, is indeed noteworthy, not just for its approach to Poe’s stories, but also its superb execution and unexpected, haunting pathos.

Each vignette has a distinct animation style with great imagery and notable narrator. The Fall of the House of Usher, narrated by Christopher Lee, is the first and longest of the short films, and it is an excellent start to this moody and atmospheric collection. It captures wonderfully the melancholy and dread that looms over the house of Rodrick Usher as he fears his sister has been buried alive. The Tell-Tale Heart is animated in stark black and white. This short segment is narrated by Bela Lugosi, whose voice comes through the distant hiss and crackle of an old phonograph. The third segment, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, animated to resemble a comic book, is probably the least known story in the film. This story, narrated by Julian Sands, tells of a mesmerist who hypnotizes an ill friend at the moment of death in an attempt to stop death and learn about the great beyond. 

The Pit and the Pendulum, about a prisoner facing torture at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition, is told by Guillermo Del Toro and done in a realistic computer animation. The final segment is the silent The Masque of the Red Death. This story shows us the gruesome effects of a plague and the decadence of people celebrating in the castle of Prince Prospero, believing themselves safe from the plague. There is only one line of dialogue in this film, when the Prince (voiced by Roger Corman) questions the identity of the strange guest that dares to wear a mask resembling the effects of the plague.

The stories are all tied together with a peculiar and clever device: a raven visits a cemetery and has a conversation with a stone statue of a woman. The Raven is the soul of Poe, and the female voice of the motionless statue is Death. Their conversation is a gateway to Poe’s stories. The Raven is melancholy and proud and anxious and defiant of death and time. “My work is eternal,” it says, “I want that eternity.” The soft sweet voice of death is gentle, beguiling, and alluring, but also content and peaceful and inviting. The scenes of the Raven and Death are haunting and give us glimpses into Poe’s life and thoughts.

Extraordinary Tales is a wonderful and fitting tribute to Edgar Allan Poe, a love letter to his work and influence. It is a great way to enjoy some of his most famous stories or introduce someone to them. It’s also great to watch with someone that isn’t really into horror and makes for a perfect moody Shocktober night.

13 Nights of Shocktober: Kwaidan

by A.J. 

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 9: Anthology Horror Night
Ghost Stories of Old Japan

Kwaidan (1964)

Kwaidan is one of my favorite Japanese horror movies. It is also an anthology film, another favorite genre of mine. I first saw this film several years ago on TCM late at night. It has since become part of their programming rotation and usually airs in October. Kwaidan translates to “Ghost Stories” or “Strange Stories” and the film is exactly that: a collection of ghost stories from Japanese folklore. The vignettes are based on the writings of Lafcadio Hearn, a writer and folklorist who was born in Greece, spent time in the United States, and eventually moved to Japan in the late 1800’s where he married into a samurai family and changed his name to Yakumo Koizumi. Everything about Kwaidan feels so distinctly Japanese that I was surprised to learn that a Westerner was in any way involved.

The first story, titled "The Black Hair," is about a young samurai that abandons his wife to marry into another family of higher status. He comes to regret his decision and returns to his first wife to make amends, but all it not what it seems. This where the story turns to the supernatural. This first segment is a slow burn, but builds to a satisfyingly spooky reveal and sets the tone for the rest of the film. 

The second story, "The Woman of the Snow," is my favorite. A young woodcutter becomes lost in a forest during a snowstorm. The Woman of the Snow, a cold, icy spirit comes to drink the warm blood of the woodcutter, but she takes pity on him because he is so young and handsome. She tells him that he ever tells anyone what he saw in the snowy woods, even his own mother, she will return and kill him. Soon after, the woodcutter meets a lovely girl alone on a road and invites her to take shelter with him and his mother. He and the woman fall in love, marry, and have children, but as the years go by the other women in the village notice that the woman doesn’t age... 

In "Hoichi the Earless," a mysterious samurai comes to a temple at night and asks Hoichi, a blind singer, to perform the ballad of a massacred samurai clan for his lord. The samurai leads Hoichi to a mysterious gathering every night and Hoichi must keep it a secret. The final story, "In a Cup of Tea," is the shortest and most peculiar. A samurai fills up a cup with tea and sees the reflection of another man in the cup. He drinks the tea, mysterious reflection included. Later, at night the samurai gets an otherworldly visitation from the man he drank.

Kwaidan is directed by Masaki Kobayashi whose previous films were social dramas. This was his first horror film and also his first film in color. Kobayashi brilliantly and effectively utilizes color throughout his nearly 3-hour film. Rich, bold colors along with a surreal production design fill Kwaidan with memorable, vivid visuals. The sets and matte paintings are highly stylized so that they appear obviously artificial and surreal. This only enriches the ethereal, storybook atmosphere of the movie. When the woodcutter is lost in the forest in "The Woman of the Snow," the painted clouds in the sky resemble watching eyes. Somehow even the white snow is vivid and intense. Probably the most memorable image in all of Kwaidan is of Hoichi with a holy text written all over his body... except for his ears. This was the image chosen for the Criterion DVD release of Kwaidan.

Kwaidan won the Special Jury Prize at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival. It also received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Picture, making it part of the very small club of Oscar nominated horror films. Kwaidan was heavily edited for its American theatrical release but has since been restored to its original version. Though this movie does take its time telling these stories, it doesn’t drag and its epic scope justifies the runtime. Kwaidan feels unique among anthology horror films, and even among other Japanese horror films. It chronicles folklore and evokes the same tone and feel these stories likely had when told by one generation to the next. There is not blood or gore or pop-up scares in Kwaidan, but there is plenty to chill you and make you want to keep the lights on. 

13 Nights of Shocktober: Cat's Eye (1985)

by A.J.

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 7: Anthology Horror Night
A Trio of Terror

Cat’s Eye (1985)

Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye is a not-so-scary but interesting horror anthology written by King himself. The first two segments are based on short stories from the collection Night Shift and the third King wrote specifically for the movie. A nameless stray cat loosely connects the three stories; in its wanderings it encounters main characters of the first two stories but plays a much larger role in the final story.

In the first story, based on Quitters, Inc., James Woods plays a man who gets himself in way over his head when he signs up with a mysterious treatment center called Quitters, Inc. to quit smoking. The man who runs the clinic lays out cigarettes on his desk and beats and smashes them screaming at Woods that he hates cigarettes. Then he shows Woods a small room with a steel floor that becomes electrified and they watch as the cat jumps like crazy while Twist and Shout plays. The company man explains to Woods that if he smokes one cigarette his wife will be put in the room. A second cigarette and his daughter gets put in the room. After the third cigarette something far more hideous will happen to his wife. Quitter’s, Inc. employees will be monitoring Woods at all times no matter where he is. Woods thinks the Quitter’s Inc. boss was just exaggerating until he finds traces of someone having been in his house in the middle of the night. Everyone looks suspicious to Woods after that, but his urge to smoke is ever present…

The second story, based on The Ledge, finds Robert Hays as a down on his luck tennis player who is forced at gunpoint to walk along the ledge of a high rise penthouse. The man forcing Hays to walk the ledge is the rich and sadistic husband of the woman Hays was planning to run away with. This is the most basic and least complex of the three segments, though none of the vignettes are very complex stories. The Ledge plays on the fear of heights, and the much more instinctive fear of falling and dying. The rich husband taunts Hays from the windows, throws things at him, and at one point turns a firehose on him. The cat is picked up by the husband after it inadvertently wins a bet for him by not getting run over as it crosses a busy street, but when it gets the chance the cat flees the posh high rise building and ends up on a train to North Carolina where the third story takes place.

In the third segment the stray cat is found and adopted by young Drew Barrymore and given a name, General. Her mother wants the cat gone, and her father tells her myths about cats stealing baby’s breath while they sleep. Some creature is trying to steel her breath, but it is not the cat, it is the demonic gremlin that lives in a hole in a wall of her bedroom.

Thought Cat’s Eye is a horror movie and written by Stephen King, the content and tone of each story is along the lines of classic Twilight Zone episodes. The first two stories are thrillers that have no supernatural elements. They scare through suspense. The third story, about the cat and the gremlin, isn’t scary but is entertaining. I think it is the kind of not-too-scary horror story that older kids can watch; it is about a pet saving its child owner from a monster her parents don’t believe is real, after all. The gremlin has scary eyes and sharp teeth but wears a jester’s hat with bells and makes comical noises.

The blue screen effects do not hold up very well. Quitters, Inc. which relies the least on effects fairs best in that respect. The effects in The Ledge don’t hold up, if they ever did, but if you have a fear of heights the nature of the story will still provide some suspense. All of the attempts of the old man to throw Robert Hays off balance get a bit goofy after a while. Cat's Eye attempts to build the cat’s character and backstory; at the beginning of the movie it sees little Drew Barrymore’s face appear in a store window asking for help. The cat is not very expressive however, but I’m willing to accept that it knows it has a mission. Cat’s Eye is a good horror anthology to take a break from blood and serious scares with some entertaining suspense. 

13 Nights of Shocktober: Tales from the Hood

by A. J.

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month-long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 12: Nightmares and reality meet on the street: Tales from the Hood

Since I could not find an acceptable werewolf movie this Shocktober, I’ve decided to include a second horror anthology movie. At first, I was reluctant to do so until I saw the ridiculously entertaining and spooky Tales from the Hood, written and directed by Rusty Cundieff. This horror anthology from 1995 presents four stories all dealing with African-American characters or issues. This film may not be directly related to the HBO series Tales from the Crypt, but it is certainly influenced by the EC Comics, on which Tales from the Crypt was based, and anthology horror films of the 1960s and 70s. Tales from the Hood takes its title from the 1972 Tales from the Crypt film.

The film begins with three young criminals entering a funeral home where they expect to buy some high quality drugs from the mortician. The mortician, Mr. Simms, played with wonderful subtle eccentricity by Clarence Williams III, is supposed to have very “good shit.” As he takes them to where “the shit” is, they tour the funeral home and Mr. Simms tells them stories about his previous “customers.” In the first story, “Rogue Cop Revelation,” a respectable black community leader is murdered by corrupt police officers who later face the consequences of their reprehensible actions when the murdered man comes back from the grave. It is probably the weakest of the four stories, but by no means bad. It is a good place for the film to start.

The second story, “Boys Do Get Bruised,” is by far the best and would be an outstanding short film on its own. It is about a shy, quiet boy named Walter that reluctantly confesses to his teacher that the bruises he has are not just from the school bully, but from the “monster” in his house. His teacher sees drawings Walter made of the school bully and the monster; Walter draws the monster as a horned beast with glowing eyes. Later the school bully is sent to the hospital for unexplainable, spontaneous injuries. Walter’s drawings might be the key to stopping the monster. David Alan Grier, known best for his comedic work, has a role in this story that is far from light. His character is cruel and severe, and Grier plays it so well that you’re amazed by his performance, while also being shocked and scared by his character. The whole film is worth watching just for this chilling story alone.

In “KKK Comeuppance” Corbin Bernsen plays Duke, a former, but unreformed, Ku Klux Klan member running for political office despite protests from black and Jewish community groups. To make matters worse, he has moved into a former plantation that was the site of a slave massacre. There is a painting in the house of Miss Cobbs, a voodoo priestess, surrounded by dolls, each one representing a victim of the massacre. Strange things begin to happen as dolls disappear from the painting. This story is the most ridiculous, but also the most fun. 

The final story Mr. Simms tells is a chilling psychological freak-out. “Hard Core Convert” is about a violent gang member named Crazy K who survives being shot only to end up in prison. Once there, he is transferred to a facility deep underground where he is subjected to radical experimental rehabilitation treatment inspired by A Clockwork Orange. In the next cell is a white supremacist who says he likes Crazy K because they both like killing the same kind of people: black people. The final phase of Crazy K’s treatment involves being put in a sensory deprivation chamber where he is confronted by the ghosts of his horrible, reckless actions. The film ends back in the funeral home with Mr. Simms and the drug seekers. The final scene might not be a big surprise, but it is a perfect fit and ends the movie with a bang. 

There is a lot of blood and gore and monsters in Tales from the Hood. For the most part the special effects hold up well and are extremely effective, except for the ones that are wholly CGI; however, those dated images only last for a moment and don’t diminish the rest of the movie. Tales from the Hood succeeds at what The Twilight Zone managed to do so well: delivering scares and chills while also giving us heavy social commentary. The moral messages do not hinder entertainment value, they enhance it along with our overall enjoyment. This movie finds the right balance between spooky fun ("Rogue Cop Revelation" and "KKK Comeuppance") and real horrors with a supernatural twist ("Boys Do Get Broken" and "Hard Core Convert"). The ultimate result is a movie that is loads of fun, incredibly entertaining, and just the kind of movie you want to see come Halloween time.

13 Nights of Shocktober: Twice-Told Tales

by A.J. 

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and, October becomes the month long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 4: A Trio of Terror: Twice-Told Tales

It’s hard to go wrong with a horror anthology movie starring Vincent Price, especially when the source material for the stories is the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Released in 1963, Twice-Told Tales has a bold color pallet and excellent production design that help make this a wonderful collection of Gothic short films. Though the sets may not have the most realistic appearance, their artificiality only adds to the surreal nature of these supernatural stories.

Each of the three stories begins with skeleton hands opening a book and Price providing the opening narration. In "Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment" two elderly friends celebrate Dr. Heidegger’s 79th birthday. A storm blows open the entrance to the crypt that holds the body of Dr. Heidegger’s dead fiancé. They find that a natural spring has been dripping on her tomb and though she has been dead for 38 years her body has not decayed at all. They experiment with the spring to make themselves young again, but soon find that the joys of youth also come with the troubles of youth. "Rappaccini’s Daughter" has Price playing the sinister Rappaccini who keeps his daughter, Beatrice, locked in a garden and away from all human contact. Young Giovanni falls in love with Beatrice and becomes determined to free her from her father and his experiments with plants. The final story is a short adaptation of the novel The House of the Seven Gables in which Price plays Gerald Pyncheon, who returns to his family home to search for a secret vault that holds a treasure, but is also cursed because of the family’s dark past.  

For being over 50 years old, this movie has some special effects that hold up well. The lapse photography used to de-age the characters in "Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment" is not as dated as you might expect and looks more convincing than CGI in a recent movie would look. Other effects are a little humorous, but also bizarre, such as a guinea pig that turns purple from one of Rappaccini’s experiments. However, the film as a whole relies more on set design and the performances of the actors than special effects to engage the audience. 

Typically, when you think of 19th century horror stories Edgar Allan Poe comes to mind before Nathaniel Hawthorne, but after watching this movie you’ll want to read some of Hawthorne's spooky stories. I know I do. Twice-Told Tales is classic, spooky fun from a time when horror films where almost always period films and shocks were accomplished without blood and gore. If you’re looking for a horror film that is enjoyable without being intense, let Vincent Price and Nathaniel Hawthorne provide you with three eerie flights of horror and the fantastic.