Dr. Terror's House of Horrors Reviews

The first of the many Amicus horror anthologies, DR. TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS presents five vignettes loosely connected by a train ride. Five travelers meet bearded Dr. Schreck (Cushing), who uses tarot cards to predict how each of them will die. The first to have his destiny depicted is an architect (Neil McCallum) who Schreck predicts will be killed by a female werewolf (Ursula Howells). The next to be shown his fate is a trumpet player (Roy Castle) who is to be done in by the Haitian god Dambala for publicly performing music he heard at a voodoo ceremony. An American doctor (Donald Sutherland) is then told that he will marry a vampire, and an art critic (Christopher Lee) learns he will run over an artist and be haunted by the victim's dismembered hand. The last vignette reveals a death by a creeping killer vine in a suburban backyard. The episodes run from bad (the somewhat racist voodoo sequence) to quite good (the hand story). Onetime cinematographer Freddie Francis has always been limited as a director and this film suffers for it, though that didn't stop him from going on to direct other horror anthologies, including the disappointing TALES FROM THE CRYPT (1972).