Torture Garden (1967)

Director:

Freddie Francis

Writers:

Robert Bloch (screenplay)
Robert Bloch (stories)

Release Date:

November 1967 (UK)

Genre:

Horror

Tagline:

Do You Dare See What Dr. Diabolo Sees?

Plot:

A special sideshow torture exhibit has the power, according to the showman Dr. Diablo, to warn people of evil in their futures...

Plot Keywords:

Hollywood | Collector | Cat | Devil | Carnival

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Jack Palance	...	Ronald Wyatt
Burgess Meredith	...	Dr. Diabolo
Beverly Adams	...	Carla Hayes
Peter Cushing	...	Lancelot Canning
Michael Bryant	...	Colin Williams
John Standing	...	Leo
Robert Hutton	...	Bruce Benton
John Phillips	...	Storm
Michael Ripper	...	Gordon Roberts
Bernard Kay	...	Dr. Heim
Catherine Finn	...	Nurse Parker
Maurice Denham	...	Uncle Roger
Ursula Howells	...	Miss Chambers
David Bauer	...	Charles
Niall MacGinnis	...	Doctor

Runtime:

93 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:12 (DVD rating) | UK:X (original rating) | UK:15 (video rating) | Norway:16 (1968) | Sweden:15

Company:

Amicus Productions

Trivia:

When this movie was shown in 1967 one of the promos was a pack of torture garden seeds given to patrons as they entered the theater. The seeds were actually grass seeds.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: (At 09:40) Atropos, Dr. Diabolo's dummy of an ancient goddess, is clearly breathing in one shot.

Movie Connections:

Followed by Asylum (1972/I)

Likeable if uneven batch of tales in the familiar Amicus style!

Amicus always managed to get great casts for their anthological films especially, and the fact that one or two decent American actors/actresses are present here merely, emphasises the point.

Burgess Meredith plays Dr. Diablo with marvellous relish in the linking story about a fairground charlatan who presides over "the sheers of fate" (held by an actress who can't keep still!).

Predictably, the stories are of variable quality and, like Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, some of the execution is stagey, mainly because the sets are so cheap-looking.

Story 1 about a dead witch who possesses a cat and causes a inheritor to rue his greediness is satisfactorily macabre and entertaining; Story 2 is more mysterious than horrific but the story about androids is, at least, relatively original; Story 3 is a distinctly silly episode about a piano "with a mind of it's own", who kills it's player's lover; Story 4, however, is the "piece de resistance" about the resurrection of Edgar Allan Poe (wonderful idea by Robert Bloch!). The performances in this story are also worthy of mention - Jack Palance almost puts Peter Cushing in the shade with his eccentric hamminess as a Poe fanatic, but both of them really do bring the best out of the script.

Overall, this compendium has it's faults but some of it's excellent acting and inventive script-writing push it to my second favourite Amicus film (behind The House That Dripped Blood).