Clarky's Film Review: The Vault of Horror

I stumbled across this film at 1 in the morning on Saturday night. The opening credits looked so bad that I decided that I had to watch at least some of this film. An hour and a half later and I was still there!

This is not a great film, nor is it scary, but there was something incredibly enjoyable about it. Maybe it was the sheer "Britishness" of the proceedings, but I couldn't get enough of it, no matter how bad things got.

The story of 5 men who get stuck in a lift and for no particular reason decide to tell each other their nightmares. Each of which ends with them being killed in one way or another and them uttering the phrase "..but it felt so real. Almost as if it had happened." The "shock" twist at the end being that the gentlemen are in hell / purgatory forced to relive their deaths every night.

In each vignette the man telling the story carried out a wrong against someone before they died. Whilst at times the moral message may be a bit thick, the acting shocking and the special effects even worse, this film is just about worth a watch. If only to see Marcus Brody from Indiana Jones in an earlier screen appearance and one from Tom Baker (indeed his story is the most interesting).

Midnight Mess involves a character in a vampire occupied town, and has a nice touch with the Vampire restaurant and the unmasking of the vampires, but also has some of the worst fake fangs I have ever seen in a film.

Based on Tales from the Crypt the segments were as follows:

The Neat Job has a character driving his new wife to murder as he is so anal about keeping his flat tidy!

This Trick'll Kill You has a magician travelling around India (?) tries to steal a street magicians trick to take back to America.

Bargain in Death where the main character tries to claim life insurance by faking his death and being buried alive. Only to be killed by some grave robbers who want his remains for their medical studies.

Drawn and Quartered is by far the pick of the bunch, and stars Tom Baker as an artist who gains voodoo powers over his paintings. Some ridiculous set pieces see the grisly end to a number of characters, but there is some interesting concepts here and some genuinely dark stuff.

Directed by Roy Ward Baker, who directed HC favourite Quatermass and the Pit, this is a fun little film that is worth checking out if you like old school movies and don't take it too seriously.