At the Earth's Core (1976)

At the Earth's Core (1976)

Dir. Kevin Connor

A subterranean fiction story in which a senescent British scientist (Peter Cushing) and his American sponsor (Doug McClure) tunnel through a hill in a Jules Verne-esque contraption dubbed the Iron Mole, which would be a good name for an album by a stoner doom band, if it isn't one already.

The duo go way off course and end up far beneath the Earth's crust, wholly unprepared for the dodgy FX that they find there.

The draw for me was Cushing and Caroline Munro, but he'd little of value to do and she disappeared for about half of the movie.

The bizarre flora was fun, but the fauna was bad. The rubber-suit flying things could've had some menace if the lighting had worked in their favour, but it was bad, too. Overall, the movie was a bag 'o shite, even by Amicus standards. It was just about worth it to hear Cushing say, "You cannot mesmerise me, I'm British!" right before getting totally mesmerised.

Tales From The Crypt (1972) + Vault of Horror (1973)

Tales From The Crypt (1972)
Vault of Horror (1973)

Dirs. Dir. Freddie Francis (TFtC) / Roy Ward Baker (VoH)

A Double Feature put out by Scream Factory that contains both Tales From The Crypt and its sequel, Vault of Horror (also known as Tales From The Crypt II in some regions).

I have issues with Scream Factory's price-hiking and shameless lack of integrity, but they licence some damn fine feature films.

Both are typical of the Amicus anthology format, each collecting five short stories set within a larger narrative framework. The locales for each story are different but all are set in the modern era (i.e. the 1970s).

The Studio even managed to lure some big name stars to appear in the works, such as Peter Cushing, Tom Baker, Denholm Elliott, Joan Collins and Sir Ralph Richardson.