The Vault of Horror: A horror film you need to see.

Every now and then I like for all of the dots to line up so that I can talk about a whole bunch of my favourite things in one go, be it talking about a Video game which happens to be about wrestling or a Horror film that happens to be based on a classic line of horror comics. Well today I have a real beauty to talk about because it involves a whole host of things I love a great deal. It is also a chance for me to persuade you that you need to watch this for Halloween this year.

Today I get to talk about a horror film, in fact it is what you would call a horror anthology film, which is one of my favourite types of movie, it is based on a wonderful series of comics which happens to feature a very well loved actor who is probably mostly thought of for his role as The Doctor in Doctor Who and it was made by a company I am also very fond of.

So what am I talking about? Well if you have read the title of this post or even looked at the picture which is across from this text then you will already know that I am referring to The Vault of Horror a horror anthology film made by Amicus Productions a British film production company, based at Shepperton Studios here in England. It was Filmed from August to September in 1972. It is the only Amicus anthology movie which does not feature Peter Cushing (Most likely because he was busy filming another film for Amicus called ''And Now the Screaming Starts!'') I can forgive its lack of the amazing talents of Mr Cushing though largely because it features another marvellous actor the formerly mentioned future Doctor Who, Mr Tom Baker.

So here we have an Amicus produced film based on Stories from EC Comics horror comics staring The Doctor himself Tom Baker what is there not to love here? If you arnt aware what EC Comics are then the easiest way to explain is to say that they were an American publisher of comic books, which specialized in areas such as horror fiction, crime fiction, and science fiction from the 1940s through tothe mid-1950s, with there most well known title being the Tales from the Crypt series which of course would go on to give birth to the Film Version of Tales from the Crypt made by Amicus and the Latter HBO TV series Tales from the Crypt. This film was in fact a sequel to Tales from the Crypt and was referd to in some cases and released sometimes in some markets with names like Further Tales from the Crypt and Tales from the crypt,part II. In honesty these titles probably makes more sense really as none of the stories contained in this film actually come from the EC comic series "The Vault of Horror." The story "The Neat Job" originally appeared in one of EC's other titles "Shock SuspenStories," and the rest of the stories appeared in various issues of "Tales from the Crypt.". I guess they went with the Vault of Horror title for the film to keep the EC connection but to make it stand on its own and not give anyone the idea that they would be at any disadvantage if they hadn't seen Tales from the Crypt, and the truth is this film can stand on its own legs, you can enjoy it and the stories within it regardless of if you have seen the Tales from the Crypt or not.

Ok so the film as I have pointed out is an anthology story but it has a what I would call wrap around story which holds all of the short stories together. In this case the story is that five strangers all get in to a lift togther, a lift in what appears to be an office block. They end up in the sub-basement even though none of them pressed the button for that floor. In the sub-basement they find a fully furnished room. The lifts door closes and they are all stuck down there, so they make the best of it they settle down grab drinks and begin to talk to each other, they end up talking about dreams and it is then that each one of them takes it in turns to tell everyone about a recurring nightmare they think they have been having, these tales form the stories in this anthology.

Ok so despite this film having come from the 1970's my main reason for writing this is to convince you that you need to see this film. So to that end I intend to lay out a rough idea of the stories within the film, to sell it to you but I will also be trying to not give away too much.

First there is a tale called Midnight Mess taken from Tales from the Crypt issue 35. It is about a brother who tracks down his sister with the intention of killing her to claim her share of there inheritance. 

This is followed by The Neat Job from the first issue of Shock SuspenStories. Its the tale of an obsessively clean and tidy man who marries what can best be described as a young trophy wife who unfortunately for him doesn't live up to his ideals of domestic home maker this starts to drive him mad, and his reactions begin to do the same to her.

This Trick’ll Kill You taken from Tales from the Crypt issue 33. A magician on a working holiday in India, is searching for new tricks. Nothing gets his attention until he sees a girl charming a rope out of a basket with a flute. Unable to work out how the trick is done, he persuades her to come to his hotel room, so that he can gain this skill.

Bargain in Death taken from Tales from the Crypt issue 28. A man is buried alive as part of an insurance scam concocted with his friend. His friend double crosses him leaving him to suffocate. He is discovered when Two trainee doctors bribe a gravedigger to dig up a corpse to help with their studies.

Drawn and Quartered taken from Tales from the Crypt issue 26. An impoverished painter living on Haiti (Played by Tom Baker). Learns that his work has been sold for large profits by dealers and critics who told him that it was worthless, because of this he goes to a voodoo priest and his painting hand is given a strange power; whatever he paints or draws can be harmed by damaging its image. 

Maybe it is because of Tom Baker and my fondness for the man but Drawn and Quartered is definitely my favourite story and it actually makes me wish that he was involved in more horror films. The man is incredibly eccentric in his acting and this gave us the wonderful Alien 4th Doctor but this same quirk can help him come across as quiet terrifying in a very you have no idea what he could be capable of way. The whole of this film relies on little twists and turns and in all honesty if you are used to the sort of horror movie idea that the sinner must somehow pay for his sins then you will most likely to some extent see everything coming from a mile away yet it still manages to draw you in. It is quiet surprising that the HBO Tales from the Crypt Series never reused any of these stories, the opening story of that series was one of the ones used for the Tales From The Crypt Amicus film years earlier after all.

So I would recommend this film to people who love horror anthology films, people who loved the Tales from the Crypt TV show and want to see more of the EC comics stories on film and to fans of Tom Baker who want to see The Doctor in a less heroic role. This is not the last time I will focus on people from Doctor Who turning up in the world of horror.

Could The Doctor Kill Davros? Does he really have it in him?

I almost wrote a review for the Doctor Who Episode Series 9 opening episode The Magician's Apprentice but I didn't. I firmly wanted Doctor Who to be talked about on here and I actually really enjoyed the episode but I cant write about everything or I just wouldn't have a life. 

Yet when this Autograph fell on my door step the other day it made me really stop and think I need to write something Who related.

There are a couple of ideas I have had for getting some Dr Who in here one idea I had was for writing a piece about how to get fans of new Who in to classic Who then I had an idea for writing a post about mixing up companions and Doctors. So for example if I had to put together a bunch of audio plays, big finish Dr Who stories which all featured a Doctor with someone who was a companion of an earlier or latter version of himself then who do I think would go well with whom. So it might be that I want to hear Captain Jack meet The 4th Doctor (Tom Baker) or I want to go for a double dip of Scottish and put the most recent Doctor (Peter Capaldi) with Jamie the highlander. I wont say anymore or go into it in great depth as this is an idea I might one day return to.

Ok if you haven't watched The Magicians Apprentice you might want to stop reading now as I will be touching on material of a spoiler filled nature. More or less as soon as the episode had finished airing people started saying ''but the Doctor cant and wont kill Davros, we have all ready seen him say he doesn't have the right to use his powers to commit genocide and if he killed Davros then he would be killing the Daleks. Now there are all kinds of business and financially related reasons which make it pretty much concrete that the Daleks will never permanently go away but for the purposes of this blog I am not going to get in to them.

What I want to discuss is the idea that the Doctor is a constantly changing and evolving character. Just because he might do something now he wouldn't as Tom Baker's doctor doesn't make him any less the Doctor. He is much older and suffered a lot more and seen a lot more of what Davros is capable of, he can also change his mind or rethink things. To this end I want to look at all of the Doctors who met Davros or at least have existed after he was introduced.

Tom Baker's Doctor the fourth, had the best chance to kill the Daleks all he had to do was touch two wires together and it would have been the end of the Daleks, but he didn't do it, he didn't feel that he had the right to do it. In truth you can say we knew he wouldn't do it for the fact that your average person looks at the Daleks as the Doctors main enemy, the one everyone remembers. Still in that cliffhanger when Tom Baker Explained that all he had to do was touch the wires, as he questioned if he had the right to or not, he really sold the moment. People tend to look back and just go ''oh yes he said he didn't have the right'' but if you watch it back it isent quiet that plain, the Doctor is asking himself if he has the right he is mulling it over, what will happen if he does it, what will happen if he doesn't and what it will make him.

From here we have the 5th Doctor Peter Davidson, A Doctor who really was one of the most under-confident, unsure and peace loving Doctors we have had and yet he turned up with a laser gun in his hand and told Davros he had arrived as his executioner he didn't quiet manage to pull the trigger but this was partly down to his self doubt and to Davros helping spread enough doubt in the Doctors mind to keep his finger from the trigger long enough.

The 6th Doctor Colin Baker allowed a rival faction of daleks he believed would kill Davros to take Davros prisoner,this Doctor was also shown on camera knocking a man in to acid and kicking someone in the head so they fell down a manhole and broke there neck, he also shot cybermen so I say he could do it. It seems he would prefer for someone else to do the dirty work and keep his concious a little cleaner but I think push come to shove he could have killed Davros.

The 7th Doctor may have started as a bit of a clown but as time went on he proved himself to have both a mind full of plots and somewhat of a dark side. This Doctor reprogrammed the Hand of Omega an interstellar device so that if it was launched by Davros as a weapon it would blow up Skaro knowing full well that the resulting feedback would destroy Davros's ship most likely killing all on board.... when Davros begged for pity the Doctor said he had Pity for him and left him for dead. He escaped but the Doctor didn't know that and was happy enough thinking he was dead. He also logically talked what he believed to be the very last Dalek in existence in to committing suicide. I dont know if he would be able to kill Davros but he certainly would be willing to let another do it or to take actions which would directly result in his death.

The next few Doctors I will be a touch briefer on because some of them never even got to meet Davros at least not on the TV screen.

Paul McGanN Doctor Nine never met him on TV at least but I have to admit I would have a hard time imagining the Doctor we saw in the TV movie wanting to kill him. However there is a big finish audio which shows that when pushed far enough by Davros he does have the ability to sell Davros out to others he believes will get him out of the way. I think the War Doctor would have been able to do it, I also feel with the rage shown at times by 9 without someone there to tell him why he shouldn't I think he could tip over the edge and do it, lets face it without rose he was happy to kill what he thought was the last Dalek, the last of a species. I am sure he would have tortured himself afterwords as this seemed very much to be his thing.

David Tennants Doctor well we saw him try to get Davros to come with him rather than die so I guess that speaks for Ten, he was also somewhat displeased with his half human clone. Matt Smiths Doctor never met him but again I feel he wouldn't have it in him to kill him, yes he was shown as capable of going to War and of calling in favours but look at for example Colonel Runaway. I think this Doctor would want to try to stop Davros without killing him. I do feel that as with all of my other opinions and statements this one is very open to questioning.

So to me that's four Doctors I feel could kill davros, and five I feel couldn't. The current Doctor has all of these inside him and yet is also his own person. The only reason I say he wont do it is because the Davros we see is a child and the BBC are not going to want to see a hero kill a child. Also I do think the above Doctors who happily tried to kill Davros or who got halfway there would have a much harder time with a childhood version of Davros. Personally I would have just saved him in the first place and taken him in to the Tardis with me and taken him somewhere nice , give the kid a nice life in a happy place filled with love and see if he turns out different, worst case take him somewhere where the most destructive thing technology wise he could build would be a catapult. If you did this though there wouldn't be much story but the very fact that people like me can discuss what they would do at any point in the Doctors shoes shows how much we connect with the show and how much it has entertained us and sparks our imagination.

I guess I will find out what happens latter tonight just like everyone else.