I
personally love the movies released by
Amicus pictures, but when British horror is
discussed they seem to get overshadowed by Hammer, as a matter of fact some people
mistakenly identify some
Amicus releases as being from Hammer. In my opinion their films were just as good , i probably have more
Amicus releases on my favorites list than Hammer releases. The company was founded by two Americans Milton
Subotsky and Max Rosenberg . After Hammer had success with the CURSE OF
FRANKENSTEIN in 1957 it sparked a worldwide
intrest in British horror and the two Americans quickly relocated to the UK to capitalize on the trend and also
Britain was giving tax incentives to movie
company's who produced
films in the country and forced cinemas to show a certain number of British produced films a year so you knew you more than
likely would get your film shown on a large number of screens , so they founded their production company there and history was made. Even though they are now
overlooked by many they were a serious rival to Hammer in the 60's and 70's . As a matter of fact both companies shared many of the same actors, writers and directors.
Amicus seemed to find a niche in producing anthologies , they did not limit themselves to those films but they were by far the most well known and popular. In 1977 after two of their most successful films "The land that time forgot" and "At the earths core" and in the middle of
production of the 3rd in the series "The people that time forgot" In a curious move Rosenberg abruptly quit, some say he just wanted to be back home in good
ol' '
merica and the company soon there after disbanded ("People that time..... was eventually finished and released by
AIP). Both men continued to work in film when they came back to the U.S ,
Subotsky had a minor hit in 1980 with the "MONSTER CLUB" he died in 1990. Rosenberg went on to
produce the horror hits "THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN" in 1978 and"CAT PEOPLE" in 1982, he died in 2004. Now sadly with time , more and more people have all but
forgotten about
Amicus ,except for us few obsessive horror fans of course.
So that being said , all my reviews in this post as a tribute ,will all be from
Amicus :The studio that dripped blood. You can watch the trailers for most of the films by clicking on the link
provided below the reviews.
THE SKULL(1965) Ill start with this one because its one of my all time favorites . A thief offers professor of occult studies ,Christopher
Maitland(PETER
CUSHING), a skull, which he claims is the
skull of the Marquis
de Sade. A fellow collector (CHRISTOPHER LEE) who once owned the skull warns him that it is possessed by
an evil spirit and that the spirit emerges on the two nights of the new moon, the traditional nights of witchcraft and Devil worship. As the new moon arrives,
Maitland finds himself being possessed and driven to unspeakable acts by the skull. Some younger folks might find this to be a little slow moving but in my opinion its just right, the tension builds slowly to an almost perfect ending, i love everything about this one ,the mood is set perfectly, hell i even like the color of the film , i saw this on late night
TV when i was young and loved it , so maybe the nostalgia of it is why i still like it so much, or maybe its the evil spirit of
de Sade possessing me ,
lol ,whatever it is, this is great and i highly
recommend it.
http://youtu.be/8wSvF3msfK4ASYLUM(a.k.a HOUSE OF CRAZIES, 1972) Here is
another i saw as a youth , this time on one of my
family's many trips to the drive - in were my love of horror was born.When a young doctor arrives at the
Dunsmoor Asylum for the insane, he expects to be interviewed by asylum director Dr. Starr. Insted he is met by Dr. Rutherford , who explains that Dr. Starr has suffered a mental breakdown and is now one of the patients. He further explains that if Martin can deduce which one is really Dr. Starr, then he will be given the position. We get 4 tales of terror written by author Robert Bloch(of PSYCHO fame), the 1st and last are the best the middle two are o.k. Two scenes always stuck out in my mind when i was young , in the first tale a guy chops up his wife ,
wraps her body parts in paper and sticks them in the freezer, later they come back to life to exact revenge on him. In the last story a man makes robots with heads that look
like real people someone steps on one and its filled with human innards. As i got older i
couldn't remember the name of this one and i looked threw many books and magazines about horror films for years trying to figure out what it was but to no avail, finally in the late 80's i came across a video titled HOUSE OF CRAZIES and when i got it home low and behold there it was!! What i had been looking for for so long, so i went back to the rental store and persuaded them to sell it to me and its still in my collection to this day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjQFy-fcdOE
CITY OF THE DEAD(aka HORROR HOTEL 1960) - This is not officially an
Amicus release but it was the first horror film made by the same producers of
Amicus so i am including it here. This was released in America as HORROR HOTEL
with about 2 min. of footage removed with dialog that
dealt with satanism that the American distributors thought was too
Strong for our audiences . This is an incredibly atmospheric film starring Christopher Lee as professor
Driscoll who sends one of his students to the town of
Whitewood to research a paper on witchcraft, the student becomes the victim of a coven of witches and later her sister comes to
Whitewood to find her. Will she become a victim of the same fate that fell upon her sister? What does Professor
Driscoll have to
do with the mystery? She must uncover the truth before its to late!!! Great film, one of my top 10 favorites of all time, this one is creepy as hell. If your a 60's horror fan its a must see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzlnrLrXorwDR. TERRORS HOUSE OF HORRORS(1965) - Another great anthology from
Amicus . Five strangers board a train and are
joined by a mysterious fortune teller who offers to read their Tarot cards. Five separate tales of horror unfold and by the end, the train riders learn of their true fates in a twist
ending . This one stars Donald Sutherland in one of his first roles, Christopher Lee and Peter
Cushing as DR. Terror/DR.
SHREK . This is probably my favorite anthology from
Amicus , another highly
recommended film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQbJfNuRdrk
TALES FROM THE CRYPT(1972) - Another anthology film , this one based on stories from the EC comics of the same name. In the film, five strangers encounter the mysterious Crypt Keeper and he tells each tales that reveal the manner of their death , this one has almost the same twist ending as DR TERRORS HOUSE OF HORRORS. In my opinion its not as good as DR Terror or Asylum but still a good film, it seems tame by
today's standards but at its
release it was
considered very shocking. The best
segment stars Peter
Cushing as an old man whose house is an eyesore so the
neighbors try to drive him out,
distraught he hangs himself and one year later his corpse rises from the grave to get revenge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnxFio89IU0
VAULT OF HORROR(1973 ) - Again we have an anthology pic based on an EC comics publication . Five men trapped in the basement vault of an office building share visions with each other of their demise. This time its a very uneven group of stories , its a fun movie but the results are not quit as
successful as before even though it was directed by Roy Ward Baker who was responsible for some of the best Hammer movies , and once again they
utilize almost the same ending as they did in the Tales.... and DR Terror... films . In my opinion there is a little too much humor injected into this one and the lack of a big name such as
Cushing really hurts this one. If your an
Amicus fan
you'll want to see it and this in on a double feature DVD with TALES FROM THE CRYPT so money wise you cant go wrong . The movie is in color i have no idea why
the trailer is in black and white.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbJv40eM0IA
TORTURE GARDEN(1967) - 
Another anthology film ,this time we have four segments adapted from short stories by Robert Bloch. Each is introduced by Dr. Diablo played by Burgess Merideth(Penguin from BATMAN TV show), an evil character who runs a carnival sideshow. The doctor's audience are induvidualy told of their ultimate fates as Diabolo weaves his stories. This is probably the weakest of all of the Amicus anthologies, fact is the stories are just not scary and you can see the twists coming from a mile away. The best of all the segments is the last with Peter Cushing and Jack Palace in a story titled "The man who
collected Poe". Even though its the weakest of the lot , if your a Amicus completest youll want to see it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZYsfTJuwP0
THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD(1971) - Another anthology with four stories written by Robert Bloch staring Peter Cusing , Christopher Lee ,
in one of his few non- villian roles, and British scream queen Ingrid Pitt doing what she does best showing plenty of cleavage and portraying a vampire . A Scotland Yard investigator looks into four mysterious cases involving past residents of a now unoccupied house . All four segments are good but my favorite is the 2nd with Peter Cushing playing a man who falls under the spell of a wax figure in a house of horrors. This is one of the stronger
anthology films from Amicus, right up there with "Dr. terror... "and "Asylum" and ends with a rather witty prologue delieverd by a real estate agent. Recomended.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlfUdjxRPO8
THE DEADLY BEES( 1967) - A very popular film at the time of its release this one bosts a Robert Bloch screenplay based on the novel "A Taste of Honey "by H.F. Heard. The film was directed by Freddie Francis concerning a popular singer who goes to rest at a country estate ,when she arrives an outbreak of bee attacks start to happen by bees specially trained to kill by a crazy beekeeper.
Not the best film in the Amicus cannon , no big name stars are involved but its still a fun watch , its saved by a couple of gruesome kills. It was widley reported that Francis hated working on this film, mainly because he didnt like Bloch. Sorry i couldnt find a trailer for this one
THE BEAST MUST DIE(1974 ) - Here we have a werewolf film starring Peter Cushing with a screenplay based on the short story "There Shall Be No Darkness" by James Blish. I didnt bother watching this one for years because for some reason i didnt like the title and i didnt like the synopsis on the video box. After i finally watched it i found it to be a fairly decent movie, i guess you cant judge a book (in ths case a video) by its cover. A millionaire invites a group of people to stay at his estate, where he reveals that one of them is a werewolf, and they will be submitted to various tests to see which one of them is the beast and then
they will be killed. We the viewers are invited to join the fun and to help solve the mystery in a 30 second break called "The Werewolf Break" near the end of the film, the tag line for the film reads as follows - "One of these eight people will turn into a werewolf. Can you guess who it is when we stop the film for the WEREWOLF BREAK? See it ... solve it ... but don't tell!" A pretty silly film but its still a worth a watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klfE_nescX0
MADHOUSE(1974) - Vincent Price and Peter cushing star in this film about a horror actor played by Price who returns to revive his most famous
role,Doctor Death, years after being locked away because of a scandle, pretty soon the cast and crew begin to die in ways that portray scenes from his past films. Price must find the killer and end the madness before he himself becomes a victim. This was a fun film that was a joint release with AIP pictures, and one of the few times Price and Cushing starred together.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl1QO7ljUIQ
FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE ( 1973) . I cant comment on this one because ive not seen it yet , i have recently found it online and will watch it and update here later , until then here is the plot summory found at IMDB: Anthology film from Amicus adapted from four short stories by R. Chetwynd-Hayes strung together about an antique dealer who owns a shop called Temptations Ltd. and the fate that befalls his customers who try to cheat him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcvlHU37bG0
...AND NOW THE SCREAMING STARTS(1973)- Im sorry to say that im going to have to have this thing on a downer but thats whats about to happen. They should have named this thing ...And now the sleeping starts because this is a terribly boring affair.The story concerns a family curse on the house of Fengriffen and a severed hand with a mind of its own crawling around. Its a shame this didnt work because it has all the right pieces in place , like a good director ,Roy Ward Baker , a good cast with genre vets Peter Cushing , Herbert Lom and Patrick Macnee but its just moves too damn slow and cant hold my attention. what a shame. Based on the novel "Fengriffen"(1970) by David Case.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7atpocQAqzI
Here is a bunch of links to horror trailers for your enjoyment. Have fun!
harm or exploit the sharks he slaps 'em around and makes chum out of them . A really fun movie that was a big drive-in hit , good stuff . A few years before this, 
