Favorite Horror Anthology Film?

For me, the fun of Creepshow has yet to be matched.

I gotta go with Creepshow also. Haven't seen too many others, but just so this isn't a total Creepshow thread, I remember as a kid I loved The Monster Club with Vincent Price. I need to look that movie up and watch it again.

I liked the tales from the crypt movie.

Creepshow, followed closely by Trilogy of Terror, that damn Zuni fetish doll gave me nightmares.

Twilight Zone: The Movie still holds up fine. Love the opening with Albert Brooks and Dan Ackroyd.

I like the Landis episode, but yeah, Steve-O's segment is awful. Hardly ruins the film though.

I object. Every adaptation pales in comparison to the original television episodes. Lithgow's remake was probably the closest, but he still couldn't top the the over-acting tour-de-force that is William Shatner. Dante's cartoony "It's a good life" was an interesting take, but the original Bily Mumy episode at least tried to capture the actual creepiness of the original Jerome Bixby short story. The "Kick the Can" segment isn't even worth mentioning, and the only good thing out of the Vic Morrow episode is the bootleg footage of the helicopter crashing on top of him.

I will, however admit to saying "Th.Th.Th..That's All, Ethel" whenever I beat someone at pool.



Some others:

"Creepshow" wins for doing the best mix of humor and horror. It's good campy fun, and still holds up 20+ years later. Creepshow 2 sucked, save for "The Raft".

"Trilogy of Terror" tops out as one of the best made-for-TV horror films (loses to "Don't be afraid of the Dark") but the final "Zuni Doll" segment is the only one of the three worth mentioning.

People remember the 1972 "Tales From The Crypt" with Joan Collins and Peter Cushing, but the 1973 anthology "Vault of Horror" is the far superior collection. HBO's "Tales from..." wishes it's stuff was this good.

Corman's 1962 "Tales of Terror" is great with three tales from Poe, the best being the adaptation of the "The Black Cat". Starring Peter Lorre and Vincent Price!

Avoid "Tales from the Darkside-The Movie" at all costs. It's urban clone "Tales from the Hood" should have it's negative burned.

Anybody remember Nightmares - the anthology film made in the 80s. My recollections are vague, but I do know I enjoyed the hell out of it as a kid. Seems like this was on HBO rotation for awhile. The only episode I can recall nowadays was the one featured Emilio Estevez obsessed to an arcade video game.

Yes, but I have to give love for its framing device. It's got Debbie Harry as a witch trying to cook a little kid, and that is aces in my book.

I just found this on cable the other day- the Estevez portion's the only one worth mentioning. But it's campy and 80s and pretty fun.

I'm a huge fan of anthology films- even the shitty ones like Necronomicon. I love short stories, so maybe that's why.

Funny time for this thread, as I'm just in the middle of reviewing a Joel Reed anthology called Blood Bath for CC. Not the greatest film in the world, but it is fun in a 70s way.

I really dig "Asylum", which I saw at a Florida drive-in under the nifty title of "House of Crazies." Someone needs to bring back the Robert Bloch-inspired anthology films. They have plenty of material to choose from.

No love for Cat's Eye or The Company of Wolves? 2 of my faves.

And I love the TZ movie, especially the Lithgow bit & Joe Dante segment.
Creepshow's fun, Tales from the Darkside's ok, and I love the Tales from the Crypt, Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, and Night Gallery shows...

I remember liking the show, MONSTERS, when I was a kid as well. Where's this on dvd?

Also reminds me that I can't wait for Darabont's The Mist.

I've got a couple J-Horror Anthologies coming my way from Netflix...

The Night Gallery anthology movies were really great. I'm honestly not sure if the anthology "movies" I saw were merely three episodes of the show strung together and marketed as one cohesive unit, but I remember watching a distinct Night Gallery film on at least one occasion. The last vignette in one of them was a kind of riff on Dorian Gray about a man whose self portrait is supernaturally linked to his own face - whatever happens to the portrait will inevitably happen in real life (the ironic twist being that in the end, he spills paint thinner on the portrait, turning it to a gruesome mess, after which he runs into the street and gets his head run over by a delivery truck). Anyway, I liked it.

Which brings me to the other thing I wanted to bring up- did anyone else watch the anthology show "Monsters" from the early '90's? I know it certainly isn't on DVD or widely available anywhere, which is a pity, since it was an amazing horror anthology show, and not a rip off of the Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits, either.

That was actually in The Vault of Horror" film I mentioned.

"Night Gallery" was a made for TV film that spawned the series. It had Joan Crawford as a blind woman buying new eyes (Weakest segment and directed by non other than Steven Spielberg), A Nazi war criminial running from his past (far too drawn out), and "The Cemetary" with Roddy Mcdowel about a murder victim slowly appearing in a painting comming to get his killer (The best of the bunch).

All of the segments had a painting somewhat integral to the plot (save the Crawford piece), which might be why you mixed the films.

Love that one... Ossie Davis too, if I remember correctly. Genuinely creepy.

Oh, you're right. They were very similar in tone and format, so i can see how I confused them. I loved the Cemetary man vignette- the use of the changing painting was really effective.

There was one other anthology from back in the '70's that also smacks of Vault and Gallery, but I can't remember its name. In it, there was a vignette about some kind of 'device' (I can't remember what it was exactly) that had the ability to bring back the dead, and it was used on an older deceased man after his funeral. The last scene (in an ironic twist, of course) found him screaming in his casket, wracked with pain since his blood had been replaced with embalming fluid. His wife (daughter?) then attempts to put him out of his misery by hacking his corpse to bits with a sword, but since he's already dead, it does no good, and it ends as we watch this poor old mutilated undead guy screaming in his coffin. I might not have remembered it correctly, but that's the gist of it. Any idea where this came from? it was quite gory, especially the mutilation bit at the end.

That was the 1972 "Tales from the Crypt". It's a take on ye old "Monkey's Paw" story.

Gonna go with "Three Extremes". Still makes my skin crawl.

How the hell did I forget that one? Excellent call. Chan-wook Park's "Cut" is still my favorite of the three, contrary to what seems to be everyone else's opinon.

I still have not gotten around to seeing Three Extremes, it's been on my list of movies to see for awhile.

Curse/Death/Spirit has a lot going for it, I feel.

Yeah, I love Body Bags too. The first segment is the best (it takes place in Haddonfield!), but I liked the other two also. I remember watching it as a kid and freaking out when my mom told me that old guy was Luke Skywalker.

Freddie Francis's Tales from the Crypt (the original). I haven't seen it since I was 8 or 9, but damn if it didn't leave an amazing impression on me.

Low budget, shot on video, but not completly awful is "Cradle of Fear". 4 vignettes held together by a story about "The Man" (Goth metal band "Cradle of Filth"'s own Dani Filth).

Some decent low-budget splatter effects, and one fairly interesting story ("The Sick Room") about an internet site where you can watch live video of someone being tortured/killed, and pay to control the action.

As an added bonus, possibly the hottest goth chick on the planet Emily Bouffante does a spectacular, but way too quick striptease in the first vignette. Made the entire film worth watching.

I just didn't like Three... Extremes as a horror anthology. The vignettes were thought provoking (although I was let down by Miike's finale, which seemed like a loopy Asian take on Basket Case), but none of them really stayed with me afterwards. The fetus one went on way too long.

Grim Prairie Tales

Anyone seen Grim Prairie Tales with James Earl Jones and Brad Dourif? It's been a long while and I can't remember the quality (I was 14 at the time).

Bava's Black Sabbath any good? Torture Garden worth a rental?

EDIT: to add questions

If you're a 60's hammerish horror fan, it's quite good. Karloff is tremendously creepy in the Wurdalack segment. He's got the creepy pedophiliac old guy vibe down perfectly.

That I am. Sold.

Thanks.

Seconded.

Was that show from the 70's, Thriller, any good?
http://www.amazon.com/Thriller-Compl...?ie=UTF8&s=dvd

My much-delayed review of Blood Bath is up- definitely not the greatest horror anthology ever (hell, half of them ain't even horror) but it's pretty fun.

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Oh christ. Is that the one with the painting that got those scratch marks on it and bled? If so, it scared me so much as a kid it freaks me out just thinking about it. Or am I thinking about Picture Mommy Dead? I haven't seen it since, which is why it's probably retained its power over me. I loved Night Gallery. That was such an amazing show. Remember the 1-hour ABC horror movies that used to air? Like Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, things like that. My favorite anthology movies are Creepshow, Creepshow II ("Thanks for the ride, lady!"), Cat's Eye (was that the one with Quitters Inc.?). Wasn't there also one called Campfire Tales?

Friday the 13th The Series was good stuff. It had regular characters, but mostly it was about haunted antiques that would curse whoever had bought it. DVD now!

Freddy's Nightmares was decent from what I remember. Surprisingly violent for a syndicated show.

Kaidan (Kwaidan) - Made before J-horror automatically meant pale, twitchy children who touched people in the shower.

I remember Freddy's Nightmares! Late 80's, early 90's, really great stuff. I remember being pissed off with "Friday the 13th: the series" since it had absolutely nothing to do with "Friday the 13th: the movies."

Waxworks was pretty fun. The vampire/Castle segment was one of the best vampire take i've ever seen.


I know it's not particularly horror but in term of anthology, Amazing Stories was one of my favorites. Great Spielberg imaginary, glossy 80s fun.

Although 2 of the 4 stories do focus on ghostly women with scary hair. Love that film, Kobayashi was one of the greats of 60s cinema. Rampo Noir is an odd little film, made last year by a group of Japanese directors. Very pretty to look at if a little hollow in places.

I agree... Creepshow is the best. "Something to Tide You Over" and "The Crate" are classic.

The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill ... a classic.

I love Body Bags, Carpenter always cracks me up. The same goes for the Robert Carradine segment. That whole movie rules.

Otherwise I really like both Creepshow films (blashemphy!, I know) and Three Extremes.

That Vault of Horror sounds cool, I'm going to go check that out.

I was just about to mention those two, love them both.

Especially the uncle always yelling at the kid in Deadtime Stories, friggin' hilarious.

Tales from the Hood

I gotta give it to Bava's Black Sabbath. The version I have is a European cut in which the story of the nurse who takes the ring from a dead woman's finger is last. The American cut has Karloff's story last. The story about the nurse taking the ring from the dead lady's finger scared me so bad as a kid that I thought I actually had a for-real ghost experience. The European cut also includes a lesbian substory that was excised from the American version.
I'd have to go with ASYLUM as a close second. I even like DEAD OF NIGHT, though the only memorable episode was the ventriloquist and his dummy. By the way, this vignette inspired William S. Burroughs to write "Didja ever hear the one about the man who taught his ***hole how to talk?"

EOD

From a Whisper to a Scream is a peice to garbage not deserving a mention among the greatest anthology movies.

EOD

I'd have to put in votes for both Kwaidan and Three Extremes.

Kwaidan for being influential and beautiful, classic filmmaking.

Three Extremes for being new, and in the last two films, surreal, nightmarish, and lovely.

Sam