Dr. Terror's House of Horrors
Encyclopedia
Dr. Terror's House of Horrors is a 1965 British
horror film
from Amicus Productions
, directed by veteran horror director Freddie Francis
, written by Milton Subotsky
, and starred Peter Cushing
and Christopher Lee
.
It was the first in a series of portmanteau films from Amicus and was followed by Torture Garden
(1967), The House That Dripped Blood
(1970), Asylum
(1972), Tales from the Crypt (1972), The Vault of Horror
(1973), From Beyond the Grave
(1973), Tales That Witness Madness
(1974), which was not made by Amicus, but World Film Services, and The Monster Club
(1980), .
. Five men enter a train carriage in London
bound for Bradley, and are joined by a sixth, the mysterious Doctor Schreck (Peter Cushing
wearing a beard and false eyebrows). Schreck is the German word for terror, hence the title of the film. It also recalls Max Schreck
, the actor who played the title role in the 1922 vampire classic Nosferatu. During the journey, the doctor opens his pack of Tarot
cards and proceeds to reveal the destinies of each of the travellers. This provides the framework to tell five horror stories.
The first story concerns an architect, Jim Dawson (Neil McCallum
), who travels to a Scottish island to his former house to make alterations requested by the new owner, Mrs. Biddulph (Ursula Howells
). Mrs. Bidduplh is described as a widow who bought the house to seek solitude to recover from the death of her husband. Behind a fake wall in the cellar, he finds the coffin of Count Cosmo Valdemar, who had owned the house centuries ago. Valdemar was killed in a conflict with the Dawson family, and had vowed to exact revenge on the owner of the house and reclaim his former home. Dawson soon discovers that Valdemar is emerging to take the form of a werewolf in the night, and believes the house maid was killed by him. Believing the owner, Mrs. Biddulph's life to be in danger, he melts a cross made out of silver by his ancestors to protect the house from Valdemar's spirit, to make silver bullets, which according to legend are the only means of killing a werewolf. On the night he encounters the wolf as it is about to attack Mrs. Biddulph and shoots, he is baffled that the bullets don't kill it. Mrs. Biddulph then reveals that she had switched the silver bullets with ordinary ones. She reveals to Dawson that the true legend was that Valdemar would exact revenge on the last descendants of the Dawson clan, and that the placing of Dawson's body in place of Valdemar's in the coffin, would bring Valdemar back to life in human form. She reveals she was Valdemar's wife who had deliberately lured Dawson to kill him, even after 200 years.
The second story has Bill Rogers (Alan Freeman
) and his family returning from vacation to discover a fast-growing vine has installed itself in the garden. When the plant seems to respond violently to attempts to cut it down, Rogers goes to the Ministry of Defence
, where he gets advice from a couple of scientists (played by Bernard Lee
and Jeremy Kemp
). It soon turns out that the plant has become intelligent, and harbours homicidal tendencies towards any threats to its existence.
Story three is the intentionally humorous one. Biff Bailey (Roy Castle
) is a jazz musician who accepts a gig in the West Indies, and foolishly steals a tune from a local voodoo ceremony. When he tries to use the tune as a melody in a jazz composition back in London, there are dire consequences, mainly for the viewer. Castle was a last-minute replacement for Acker Bilk, who had suffered a heart attack. Castle's band was played by the Tubby Hayes
Quintet, a leading British modern jazz group of the time. Castle, when appearing to play with the band on-screen, actually mimes the trumpet part to the soundtrack recording of trumpeter Shake Keane
.
Next is the tale of Franklyn Marsh (Christopher Lee
), an art critic who seems more concerned with his own devastating wit than art itself. Painter Eric Landor (Michael Gough
) bears the brunt of one of Marsh's tirades, but gets even by humiliating the critic publicly. When Landor takes it too far, Marsh responds in violent fashion causing Landor to lose one of his hands. Unable to paint any more, Landor commits suicide. Marsh is then tormented by the disembodied hand, which seems immune to fire as well as possessing the skills of Harry Houdini
.
Lastly, Dr. Bob Carroll (Donald Sutherland
) returns to his home in the United States
with his new French bride Nicolle (Jennifer Jayne
). Soon there is evidence that a vampire
is on the loose, and Carroll seeks the aid of his colleague Dr. Blake (Max Adrian
), only to find out that his bride is the vampire. Following Blake's advice, Carroll kills Nicolle. But when the police come to arrest Carroll under the charge of his wife's murder, Blake denies giving any such advice. When the police takes away Carroll, Blake says that there is not enough place in the city for two doctors or two vampires, and he himself turns into a bat.
The frame story ends with a twist: From the Tarot cards, the doctor informs the men that the only way they can avoid these horrible destinies is by dying first. When the train stops, the men find out that they are dead, having already perished in a train wreck; and Doctor Schreck is revealed to be Death himself
.
on 25 May 1964 with a budget of $
105,000. The script began as a still-born television series in 1948 during the time when Dead of Night
was a recent release. Milton Subotsky considered that movie to be "the greatest horror film ever," and used it as a blueprint for Dr. Terror and the rest of Amicus' portmanteau films. Filming was completed on 3 July 1964 and was released on 5 February 1965.
.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
from Amicus Productions
Amicus Productions
Amicus Productions is a British film production company, based at Shepperton Studios, England. It was founded by American producer and screenwriter Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg.-Horror:...
, directed by veteran horror director Freddie Francis
Freddie Francis
Frederick William Francis BSC was an English cinematographer and film director.He achieved his greatest successes as a cinematographer, including winning two Academy Awards, for Sons and Lovers and Glory...
, written by Milton Subotsky
Milton Subotsky
Milton Subotsky was an American TV and film writer/producer. In 1964, in England, he formed Amicus Productions with Max J Rosenberg.Together they produced a number of low budget science fiction and horror films....
, and starred Peter Cushing
Peter Cushing
Peter Wilton Cushing, OBE was an English actor, known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played the handsome but sinister scientist Baron Frankenstein and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, amongst many other roles, often appearing opposite Christopher Lee, and occasionally...
and Christopher Lee
Christopher Lee
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ is an English actor and musician. Lee initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films...
.
It was the first in a series of portmanteau films from Amicus and was followed by Torture Garden
Torture Garden (film)
Torture Garden is a 1967 British horror film made by Amicus Productions. It was directed by Freddie Francis and scripted by Robert Bloch. It stars Burgess Meredith, Jack Palance, Michael Ripper, Beverly Adams, Peter Cushing, Maurice Denham, Ursula Howells, Michael Bryant and Barbara Ewing...
(1967), The House That Dripped Blood
The House That Dripped Blood
The House That Dripped Blood is a 1970 British horror anthology film directed by Peter Duffell and distributed by Amicus Productions. It stars Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Nyree Dawn Porter, Denholm Elliott, and Jon Pertwee...
(1970), Asylum
Asylum (1972 film)
Asylum is a 1972 British horror film made by Amicus Productions. The film was directed by Roy Ward Baker, produced by Milton Subotsky, and scripted by Robert Bloch .It is a horror portmanteau film, one of several produced by Amicus during the 1960s to...
(1972), Tales from the Crypt (1972), The Vault of Horror
The Vault of Horror (film)
The Vault of Horror is a British portmanteau horror film made in 1973 by Amicus Productions. Like its predecessor, Tales from the Crypt, it is based on stories from the EC Comics series written by Al Feldstein and Bill Gaines...
(1973), From Beyond the Grave
From Beyond the Grave
From Beyond the Grave is a 1974 British anthology horror film from Amicus Productions, directed by horror director Kevin Connor, produced by Milton Subotsky and based on stories by R. Chetwynd-Hayes...
(1973), Tales That Witness Madness
Tales That Witness Madness
Tales That Witness Madness is a 1973 British horror film produced by Norman Priggen, directed by veteran horror director Freddie Francis, and written by actress Jennifer Jayne....
(1974), which was not made by Amicus, but World Film Services, and The Monster Club
The Monster Club
The Monster Club is a 1980 British horror film directed by Roy Ward Baker and starring Vincent Price and John Carradine. An anthology film, it is based on the works of the British horror author R. Chetwynd-Hayes...
(1980), .
Plot
Dr. Terror's House of Horrors is a portmanteau film consisting of five stories within a frame storyFrame story
A frame story is a literary technique that sometimes serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, whereby an introductory or main narrative is presented, at least in part, for the purpose of setting the stage either for a more emphasized second narrative or for a set of shorter stories...
. Five men enter a train carriage in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
bound for Bradley, and are joined by a sixth, the mysterious Doctor Schreck (Peter Cushing
Peter Cushing
Peter Wilton Cushing, OBE was an English actor, known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played the handsome but sinister scientist Baron Frankenstein and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, amongst many other roles, often appearing opposite Christopher Lee, and occasionally...
wearing a beard and false eyebrows). Schreck is the German word for terror, hence the title of the film. It also recalls Max Schreck
Max Schreck
Friedrich Gustav Max Schreck was a German actor. He is most often remembered today for his lead role in the film Nosferatu .-Early life:Max Schreck was born in Berlin-Friedenau, on 6 September 1879....
, the actor who played the title role in the 1922 vampire classic Nosferatu. During the journey, the doctor opens his pack of Tarot
Tarot of Marseilles
The Tarot of Marseilles , also widely known by the French designation Tarot de Marseille, is one of the standard patterns for the design of tarot cards...
cards and proceeds to reveal the destinies of each of the travellers. This provides the framework to tell five horror stories.
The first story concerns an architect, Jim Dawson (Neil McCallum
Neil McCallum (actor)
Neil McCallum was a British Canadian actor, trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. His first major appearance on stage was with Sam Wanamaker in The Rainmaker in the mid-1950s. He appeared in many British TV series in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s. He also appeared in several films...
), who travels to a Scottish island to his former house to make alterations requested by the new owner, Mrs. Biddulph (Ursula Howells
Ursula Howells
Ursula Howells was an English actress whose elegant presence kept her much in demand for roles in film and television....
). Mrs. Bidduplh is described as a widow who bought the house to seek solitude to recover from the death of her husband. Behind a fake wall in the cellar, he finds the coffin of Count Cosmo Valdemar, who had owned the house centuries ago. Valdemar was killed in a conflict with the Dawson family, and had vowed to exact revenge on the owner of the house and reclaim his former home. Dawson soon discovers that Valdemar is emerging to take the form of a werewolf in the night, and believes the house maid was killed by him. Believing the owner, Mrs. Biddulph's life to be in danger, he melts a cross made out of silver by his ancestors to protect the house from Valdemar's spirit, to make silver bullets, which according to legend are the only means of killing a werewolf. On the night he encounters the wolf as it is about to attack Mrs. Biddulph and shoots, he is baffled that the bullets don't kill it. Mrs. Biddulph then reveals that she had switched the silver bullets with ordinary ones. She reveals to Dawson that the true legend was that Valdemar would exact revenge on the last descendants of the Dawson clan, and that the placing of Dawson's body in place of Valdemar's in the coffin, would bring Valdemar back to life in human form. She reveals she was Valdemar's wife who had deliberately lured Dawson to kill him, even after 200 years.
The second story has Bill Rogers (Alan Freeman
Alan Freeman
Alan Leslie "Fluff" Freeman, MBE was a British disc jockey and radio personality in the United Kingdom for 40 years.-Career:...
) and his family returning from vacation to discover a fast-growing vine has installed itself in the garden. When the plant seems to respond violently to attempts to cut it down, Rogers goes to the Ministry of Defence
Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)
The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....
, where he gets advice from a couple of scientists (played by Bernard Lee
Bernard Lee
John Bernard Lee was an English actor, best known for his role as M in the first eleven James Bond films.-Life and career:...
and Jeremy Kemp
Jeremy Kemp
Jeremy Kemp is an English actor. He is known for his roles in the miniseries The Winds of War, The Blue Max and Z-Cars....
). It soon turns out that the plant has become intelligent, and harbours homicidal tendencies towards any threats to its existence.
Story three is the intentionally humorous one. Biff Bailey (Roy Castle
Roy Castle
Roy Castle OBE was an English dancer, singer, comedian, actor, television presenter and musician. He attended Honley High School, where there is now a building in his name...
) is a jazz musician who accepts a gig in the West Indies, and foolishly steals a tune from a local voodoo ceremony. When he tries to use the tune as a melody in a jazz composition back in London, there are dire consequences, mainly for the viewer. Castle was a last-minute replacement for Acker Bilk, who had suffered a heart attack. Castle's band was played by the Tubby Hayes
Tubby Hayes
Edward Brian "Tubby" Hayes was an English jazz multi-instrumentalist, best known for his tenor saxophone playing in groups with fellow sax player Ronnie Scott and with trumpeter Jimmy Deuchar. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest British jazz instrumentalists.- Early life :Hayes was born...
Quintet, a leading British modern jazz group of the time. Castle, when appearing to play with the band on-screen, actually mimes the trumpet part to the soundtrack recording of trumpeter Shake Keane
Shake Keane
Ellsworth McGranahan “Shake” Keane was a jazz musician, poet and government minister...
.
Next is the tale of Franklyn Marsh (Christopher Lee
Christopher Lee
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ is an English actor and musician. Lee initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films...
), an art critic who seems more concerned with his own devastating wit than art itself. Painter Eric Landor (Michael Gough
Michael Gough
Michael Gough was an English character actor who appeared in over 150 films. He is perhaps best known to international audiences for his roles in the Hammer Horror films from 1958, and for his recurring role as Alfred Pennyworth in all four movies of the Burton/Schumacher Batman franchise,...
) bears the brunt of one of Marsh's tirades, but gets even by humiliating the critic publicly. When Landor takes it too far, Marsh responds in violent fashion causing Landor to lose one of his hands. Unable to paint any more, Landor commits suicide. Marsh is then tormented by the disembodied hand, which seems immune to fire as well as possessing the skills of Harry Houdini
Harry Houdini
Harry Houdini was a Hungarian-born American magician and escapologist, stunt performer, actor and film producer noted for his sensational escape acts...
.
Lastly, Dr. Bob Carroll (Donald Sutherland
Donald Sutherland
Donald McNichol Sutherland, OC is a Canadian actor with a film career spanning nearly 50 years. Some of Sutherland's more notable movie roles included offbeat warriors in such war movies as The Dirty Dozen, , MASH , and Kelly's Heroes , as well as in such popular films as Klute, Invasion of the...
) returns to his home in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
with his new French bride Nicolle (Jennifer Jayne
Jennifer Jayne
Jennifer Jayne was an English film and television actress.Her name at birth was Jennifer Jones, which she altered in order to avoid confusion with Jennifer Jones, the Hollywood actress...
). Soon there is evidence that a vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
is on the loose, and Carroll seeks the aid of his colleague Dr. Blake (Max Adrian
Max Adrian
Max Adrian was a Northern Irish stage, film and television actor and singer. He was a founding member of both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre....
), only to find out that his bride is the vampire. Following Blake's advice, Carroll kills Nicolle. But when the police come to arrest Carroll under the charge of his wife's murder, Blake denies giving any such advice. When the police takes away Carroll, Blake says that there is not enough place in the city for two doctors or two vampires, and he himself turns into a bat.
The frame story ends with a twist: From the Tarot cards, the doctor informs the men that the only way they can avoid these horrible destinies is by dying first. When the train stops, the men find out that they are dead, having already perished in a train wreck; and Doctor Schreck is revealed to be Death himself
Death (personification)
The concept of death as a sentient entity has existed in many societies since the beginning of history. In English, Death is often given the name Grim Reaper and, from the 15th century onwards, came to be shown as a skeletal figure carrying a large scythe and clothed in a black cloak with a hood...
.
Production
Filming began on Dr. Terror's House of Horror at Shepperton StudiosShepperton Studios
Shepperton Studios is a film studio in Shepperton, Surrey, England with a history dating back to 1931 since when many notable films have been made there...
on 25 May 1964 with a budget of $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
105,000. The script began as a still-born television series in 1948 during the time when Dead of Night
Dead of Night
Dead of Night is a British portmanteau horror film made by Ealing Studios, its various episodes directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert Hamer. The film stars Mervyn Johns, Googie Withers and Michael Redgrave...
was a recent release. Milton Subotsky considered that movie to be "the greatest horror film ever," and used it as a blueprint for Dr. Terror and the rest of Amicus' portmanteau films. Filming was completed on 3 July 1964 and was released on 5 February 1965.
Cinematic Process
Dr. Terror's House of Horror was filmed using the cinematic process known as TechniscopeTechniscope
Techniscope or 2-Perf is a 35mm motion picture camera film format introduced by Technicolor Italia in 1963. The Techniscope format uses a two film-perforation negative pulldown per frame, instead of the standard four-perforation frame usually exposed in 35mm film photography...
.