darksyde-63508 Five men in an office building take take an elevator to the ground floor, only to find themselves ending up in the sub basement with no way out. To pass the time, all five tell a tale about their dreams in this poor follow up to Amicus's Tales From The Crypt. None of the stories told in this anthology measure up to the ones in the afore mentioned "Tales", although there are a few that I enjoyed. The first story, in which a murderous brother goes to visit his sister, where he ends up meeting a fitting end,and the third in which a man and woman on vacation in India debunk a magician, and then murder a rope charmer,and must deal with the dire consequences. This story also has what will probably be the WEIRDEST fight scene ever recorded. The best parts of the fourth story are where they show a vintage "Vault Of Horror" comic book, and a scene in where the main character is reading a novilization of the "Tales From The Crypt" movie! As is in most British horror movies of the time, the gore here is at a bare minimum. So if you're a gore hound, you're probably gonna walk away disappointed. What little gore there is, is quite obviously red paint or tomato juice. And despite the title.of the movie, there really isn't much horror in this movie. "The Vault Of Weird" would have been a more appropriate title. Unlike the previous production of Tales From The Crypt, most of the storied presented here just don't work.

jimpayne1967 I had seen a few horror portmanteau movies over the years but I had never seen this film until recently. I had liked Tales From The Crypt to which this film is something of a sequel but this is mostly inferior to its predecessor.The premise of five apparently successful businessmen descending into the sub-basement of an office block where they find themselves locked into the well appointed room they have landed in with nothing better to do than drink whisky and tell each other their nightmares is not a particularly novel or strong one and the twist that they are all already dead would surprise nobody watching it. The framing story in this kind of film has to be strong and if it is like Dead of Night the twist in this part of tale has to be especially surprising but in both these aspects The Vault of Horror fails. The five segments are pretty variable in quality though one of them, the last, is pretty good. The opener 'Midnight Mess' has a neat twist in it and Daniel and Anna Massey as long lost siblings are pretty good but I thought it could have done with a few more minutes. One of the problems in the film is that it is littered with fairly big names who don't have to do much and in this story Mike Pratt- then a big name on British TV after the success of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)- gets about two lines before he is killed off. His character's back story seemed interesting but like so much of the film his part feels a bit underdeveloped.The Neat Job is part 2 and stars the great Terry-Thomas and Glynis Johns. Both are very watchable in what seems to be a light-hearted story about a fussy husband who drives his new wife to distraction because of his overwhelming neatness but the twist of having her to such distraction that she chops up him up and neatly labels his body parts in jars just does not work for me though the final shot is , well, neat.This Trick'll Kill You is better, telling as it does of a husband and wife magician team who spot a great trick on a holiday in India which they decide to steal by killing the trick's original magician only for the victim and her trick to exact spectacular revenge. The downside is that Curt Jurgens plays the thieving magician and he is, as he had a tendency to be, a touch hammy. Pass marks thoughWhich Bargain in Death does not earn. Owing something to a Ray Milland film based on an Edgar Allan Poe story about a man scared of being buried alive it is the most underdone of the stories presented and the music used at the point at which the film twists suggests farce. Michael Craig and Edward Judd were good actors and at the start of the piece there is a hint of a gay lovers plot that would have been daring for the early seventies but that is about it.Drawn and Quartered is the final story and stars Tom Baker just before he was reduced to working on building sites prior to being plucked to stardom as the fourth Doctor Who. In this story he plays an artist who, sick of rejection by the London Art Establishment, has decamped to Haiti. When there he discovers his paintings are actually selling well and that a trio of critics and art dealers who told him his work was rubbish have got rich on it.Being set partly in Haiti it is predictable that voodoo is on the menu as Baker seeks to gain his revenge and the closure of the story is predictable but the murders Baker dreams up are delightfully grizzly- the middle one is a genuine hand over your eyes moment- and it is curious to see a pre-Who Baker. He was of course very good in that latter role but everything he has done since has sounded like a slightly camp reprise of it. Here he is just a very good young actor.This film is disappointing for the most part but I have seen worse for sure.

Lee Eisenberg Although it has essentially the same plot as the earlier "Tales from the Crypt", "The Vault of Horror" still holds its own. A group of men get trapped in a room and tell each other their dreams, all of which seemed...so real. Probably the most interesting segment was the second one, in which Terry-Thomas (the Englishman in "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World") and Glynis Johns (the mom in "Mary Poppins") play what turn out to be the opposite kinds of roles with which they're usually associated. It's just fun to see the twists that occur in each segment, and then the twist at the end of the movie. It's a good time the whole way through.So yes, there is no trick. AND DON'T TRY TO PROVE OTHERWISE!

sol ***SPOILERS*** From the famous "Vault of Horror" 1950's horror magazines we have an anthology of five horror stories that have to do with persons who committed their crimes, with the exception of Arthur Critchit played by Terry-Thomas, and ended up paying for them. Arthur's only crime was being and wanting his abused wife Elenore, Glynis Jones, to be a little too neat for her and his own good. In trying to satisfy her very demanding husband Elenore ended up neatly pickling every organ,including his teeth, in his body. All five men, including Arthur, magician Sabastian, Curt Jurgens, insurance fraud shyster Maitland, Michael Criag, murderer for profit Harold Rogers, Daniel Massey, and frustrated artist and voodoo practitioner Moore, Tom Baker, end up not only paying for their crimes but reliving them over and over every day until the end of eternity!It's not a pretty sight in what happens to those who find themselves locked in the sub-basement, or Hell for short, in this London high-rise with them all getting everything that they deserved and getting it with interest compounded. But for what they did to their victims back in the world of the living it's the least that they could have expected which is about as extreme as it could be by them being punished 365 days a year until times or the calendar runs out! What's even worse is that every day of torture and suffering that they go through is a whole new day in that it's always a new experience for them! In that they forget what happened to them the day before!What the film "Vault of Horrors" shows is that crime doesn't pay not only here in the real world but the world hereafter for those who think that they got away with the crimes that they committed. Not by just getting away with their crimes in not getting caught and punished for them here on earth but what's to face them on the other side where they, unlike here in the world of the living, face final and eternal, with no time limit like a life sentence or final execution date, Justice!