Between 1965 and 1974, Amicus Productions released seven horror anthology movies—often referred to by fans as “portmanteau films”—in which a framing sequence links four or five short segments. In 1967’s Torture Garden, for example, each unrelated story is presented as an ominous vision imparted to one of a group of people at a carnival sideshow. All the segments in 1971’s The House That Dripped Blood are set in the same house at different times, and the overarching narrative concerns an inspector from Scotland Yard learning about the residence’s grisly history. The framing sequences themselves are usually tied up with an additional stinger at the end, and it’s usually not hard to predict what it’s going to be.1SPOILERS: More than one movie ends with “They were already dead all along.”

These movies are not especially scary. The plots are largely built around premises and twists that were creaky even at the time. There’s rarely anything innovative about the effects, the makeup, or creature designs. The productions are clearly low-budget affairs, made by a poky little British company that was run out of a portable office set up on the Shepperton Studios lot. Naturally, then, you might assume—especially if you just watch a trailer or look up some stills from one of these films—that these are in the “so bad they’re good” bucket for horror fans who like that sort of thing.

But that’s not quite why these movies have their devotees. If you’re looking for laughable, MST3K-style trainwrecks, you might be disappointed by the sturdy competence of the Amicus films. The directors are veteran journeymen like Freddie Francis2Better known as a cinematographer for movies including Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear and David Lynch’s The Elephant Man and Dune. and Roy Ward Baker.3Director of the 1958 Titanic drama A Night to Remember in addition to many horror and television credits. Psycho author Robert Bloch contributed stories and screenplays to three of the movies. And they’re anchored by horror icons like Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, rounded out with a cast of character actors who never give anything less than a committed performance despite having a limited amount of material to work with.

They’re also not exactly camp, if you’re thinking that might be the secret to their appeal. Some of the segments lean on humor—Jon Pertwee as a pretentious horror actor transformed into a real-life vampire, Terry-Thomas as a neat-freak whose bullying drives new wife Glynis Johns into murderous rage—but there’s not much obvious winking at the audience or looking down on the material. In fact, co-producer and sometimes-screenwriter Milton Subotsky was as genuine a horror nerd as any you might find on The Avocado. Although Amicus was surely meant to capitalize on the better-known Hammer Films’ successes in the genre, these were not mercenary imitators. Subotsky was, in fact, quite critical of Hammer’s repetitive (in his opinion) approach to their longrunning series of Dracula and Frankenstein movies. His direct inspiration for making these portmanteaux was, instead, his love of the 1945 Ealing Studios picture Dead of Night, one of the earliest of the form.

At the risk of sounding like Linus in his pumpkin patch, the sincerity of these movies is part of what’s so endearing. A clear vision for what Subotsky thinks makes for a good horror story emerges: ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, facing the supernatural or at least the fantastically bizarre. The horrors tend towards the personal over the apocalyptic,4A notable exception is the second segment of Dr. Terror’s, which results in ambulatory plants possibly conquering the world. lurking quietly beneath notice before pouncing on the unlucky protagonist and then returning below the surface, where they might go after any one of us next. The movies revel in the macabre and the lurid while remaining reasonably mild on gore and the overly grotesque; these are meant to be enjoyably spooky and not grueling explorations into the limits of human endurance, and Subotsky didn’t seem to want to seriously traumatize the kids he knew would be watching these. Many of the stories are “just desserts” tales where bad people come to bad ends; fittingly, two Amicus films are directly based on stories from EC horror comics of the 1950s that relied heavily on this formula, but even the others are frequently in the business of doling out ironic punishments.

Something else that links Amicus with EC—and distinguishes it from Hammer—is the modern setting (or, at least, modern for its time). Where Hammer presented heroes and villains in a pre-20th century Gothic atmosphere, the protagonist of an Amicus story might be an unremarkable middle-class businessman living in a suburban home, a poor tailor working out of a shop in the city, or a musician in a jazz club. In a Hammer picture, Christopher Lee might play an aristocratic demon, but in Amicus’ Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors, he’s a contemporary art critic who drives a car and works in the city. The characters also grapple with mundane anxieties over which the more visceral horrors are overlaid—spousal infidelity, creative block, professional inadequacy. 

But to the contemporary viewer, of course, the Sixties and Seventies are a bygone era of its own.5And to Americans like me, even the most unglamorous locations in Britain can’t help but have a certain exoticness. So although workmanlike directors like Francis and Ward might not have the visual flair for horror of a Mario Bava or even some of the up-and-comers working for Roger Corman, the times they inhabit can’t help but lend the films a very distinctive stylishness. Watching these movies immerses you in a world where balding men with sideburns are married to women with blue eyeshadow and immaculate hairdos and come home to rooms plastered with ornate wallpaper, who then pour themselves a drink from one of the many decanters on the wet bar that every den must contain before sitting down to page through a thick evening newspaper. Though the title of 1972’s Asylum might conjure some nightmarish Victorian dungeon, the framing sequence of the film takes place in a well-lit facility that might be mistaken for a modest hotel at first glance.

So ultimately, these are movies that charm more than they scare, although at Halloween, I myself tend to prioritize fun over legitimate frights. If you’re interested in getting to know these movies, I’ve prepared a short guide. Horror anthologies are uneven by nature, but the films overall are even enough in quality compared with each other that I thought there wasn’t much point in framing these capsules as ratings or rankings. I’ve tried to include enough information to distinguish them if you’re trying to narrow down where to start, including the actors of note (who, despite the pretentiousness of my previous paragraphs, are probably the real draw to most people rather than outdated wallpaper designs).

These films are generally available on various free-with-ads streaming services.

DR. TERROR’S HOUSE OF HORRORS (1965)

Director: Freddie Francis
Writer: Milton Subotsky
Frame Story: Strangers sharing a train car are given tarot readings by the mysterious Doktor Schreck (which the film asserts translates to something like “Doctor Terror”),

Where’s Peter Cushing? The titular doctor in the frame sequence, affecting a German accent.
Other Actors Americans Will Recognize: Christopher Lee (Hammer Dracula series, The Lord of the Rings), Donald Sutherland (Klute, The Hunger Games), Michael Gough (Burton/Schumacher Batman films)

Other Notes: The formula is pretty much established from this first film, and there are no absolutely terrible segments, making this as good a place as any to start. Confusingly enough, the titular “house of horrors” is a metaphor for the tarot deck, not a literal haunted house. The mechanical disembodied hand in Lee and Gough’s segment is, I think, a pretty decent animatronic for its time. Warning: the middle segment contains some cultural insensitivity in depictions of voodoo and a white guy doing a comedy Indian accent. In the final segment, a pre-fame Sutherland gives a somewhat more idiosyncratic performance than the other actors.

TORTURE GARDEN (1967)

Director: Freddie Francis
Writer: Robert Bloch (based on his own short stories)
Frame Story: People at a fairground are given visions of their fates by the sideshow performer Dr. Diabolo.

Where’s Peter Cushing? A collector of Edgar Allan Poe in the final segment.
Other Actors Americans Will Recognize: Burgess Meredith (Batman ‘66, The Twilight Zone), Jack Palance (Shane, City Slickers)

Other Notes: Meredith is delightful to watch hamming it up as a showman. This is one of the more visually stylish of the Amicus portmanteaux, with some interesting camera angles in the first segment and a very arresting set in the third. One of the segments has an uncharacteristically non-supernatural science-fiction twist to it. Palance’s performance, as a rival Poe collector, is truly nervy and bizarre; it is unclear whether he is attempting a British accent or not.

THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD (1971)

Director: Peter Duffell
Writer: Robert Bloch (based on his own short stories
Frame Story: An inspector from Scotland Yard is called to investigate an actor’s disappearance at a house where all of the previous tenants have faced untimely ends.

Where’s Peter Cushing? A lonely retiree and wax museum patron in the second segment.
Other Actors Americans Will Recognize: Denholm Elliott (Indiana Jones films), Christopher Lee, Jon Pertwee (Doctor Who)

Other Notes: Despite the title, there is little blood visible in this movie. One of the weaker frame stories, relying heavily on the horror trope of the skeptical investigator who doesn’t believe in the supernatural. Chloe Franks is memorably creepy as Christopher Lee’s young daughter (with a secret!) in the third segment. Pertwee’s character makes an in-joke, claiming he prefers Bela Lugosi as Dracula to the chap currently playing him (which would be co-star Lee in the Hammer films).

TALES FROM THE CRYPT (1972)

Director: Freddie Francis
Writer: Milton Subotsky (based on EC Comics stories by Bill Gaines, Al Feldstein, and Johnny Craig)
Frame Story: Strangers exploring catacombs at a historic attraction find themselves in a chamber with a mysterious Cryptkeeper who tells them each how they will die.

Where’s Peter Cushing? The victim in the third segment.
Other Actors Americans Will Recognize: Ralph Richardson (Doctor Zhivago), Joan Collins (Star Trek: “The City on the Edge of Forever”), Patrick Magee (A Clockwork Orange)

Other Notes: This has possibly the highest name-recognition of the Amicus films in the U.S. owing to the source material, and it’s a pretty decent gateway because the EC formula and the Amicus formula mesh so well. The first and last segments are based on stories also adapted in episodes of HBO’s Tales from the Crypt, although fans of the show may be surprised that Ralph Richardson plays the Cryptkeeper role completely straight with none of the puns and jokes found in the TV or comics. Supposedly, the kindly old widower dustman Cushing plays was one of his favorite roles because he considered it closest to his own actual personality.

ASYLUM (1972)

Director: Roy Ward Baker
Writer: Robert Bloch (based on his own short stories)
Frame Story: A doctor applying for a job at a psychiatric institution for the “incurably insane”6Just to get it out of the way: this horror film from the 1970s does not deal with mental illness in a contemporary, realistic, or sensitive way is challenged to determine which of the current patients was once the head of the asylum. 

Where’s Peter Cushing? The tailor’s client in the second segment.
Other Actors Americans Will Recognize: Robert Powell (Jesus of Nazareth), Patrick Magee, Barry Morse (The Fugitive TV show), Charlotte Rampling (Zardoz, Swimming Pool), Britt Ekland (The Wicker Man, The Man With the Golden Gun), Herbert Lom (Pink Panther films)

Other Notes: Probably the best frame sequence of any of the Amicus portmanteaux thanks to the mystery hook in the frame, which contributes to its high reputation among fans. The first segment is a pretty rote EC-style “just desserts” story, but the reanimated body parts (each neatly wrapped in paper) wriggling along the ground are almost exactly on the borderline between being absurd and genuinely eerie, so you can have a good time whichever side you come down on. If you ask me, though, the little murderous toy robot that Herbert Lom animates through force of will is just sort of silly in a way that isn’t scary or funny.

VAULT OF HORROR (1973)

Director: Roy Ward Baker
Writer: Milton Subotsky (based on EC Comics stories by Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein)
Frame Story: Strangers in an elevator are deposited in a gentleman’s club-like chamber with no way to get back; waiting for help to arrive, they discuss recurring dreams they’ve been having. 

Where’s Peter Cushing? Nowhere! This is the only Amicus portmanteau film in which Cushing does not appear.
Other Actors Americans Will Recognize: Terry-Thomas (It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Disney’s Robin Hood), Glynis Johns (Mary Poppins), Tom Baker (Doctor Who), Denholm Elliott

Other Notes: Most commercially available versions of this movie are clumsily edited to remove already-minimal gore. There’s a rumored deleted scene for the final part of the frame story depicting the cast as shambling corpses; it’s possible that the scene was never actually filmed and that still frames available online were just promotional shots. Contains scenes of cultural insensitivity in both its depiction of voodoo and the supposed “Indian rope trick.” 

FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE (1974)

Director: Kevin Connor
Writer: Raymond Christodoulou and Robin Clarke (based on short stories by R. Chetwynd-Hayes)
Frame Story: Customers have run-ins with the supernatural after acquiring items from an antique store called “Temptations Ltd.” 

Where’s Peter Cushing? The proprietor of the shop.
Other Actors Americans Will Recognize: David Warner (Tron, Time After Time), Donald Pleasance (Halloween, You Only Live Twice)

Other Notes: One of the best all-around movies in my opinion, not afraid to lean on some of the more old-fashioned horror signifiers (fog, screams, etc.) The first segment, involving a haunted mirror that drives David Warner to kill, is one of the bloodiest, most violent shorts in any Amicus movie (although even it is fairly tame by today’s standards). Donald Pleasance’s actual daughter, Angela, plays his daughter in the second segment. The design of the mysterious room in the final segment is particularly striking.

APPENDIX: NOT AMICUS, BUT CLOSE 

Tales That Witness Madness (1973) is a British anthology directed by Freddie Francis and is therefore often mistaken for an Amicus production, but it was actually produced by an outfit called World Film Services. Donald Pleasance features in a framing sequence. These stories are slightly more akin to Twilight Zone stories than the ghoulish horror Amicus specialized in.

The Uncanny (1977) is a British-Canadian anthology produced by Milton Subotsky for The Rank Organization. Donald Pleasance and Peter Cushing feature. Each of the stories involves cats, which probably makes this destined to become an Avocado favorite.

The Monster Club (1981) is a British anthology directed by Roy Ward Baker and produced by Milton Subotsky, but not for Amicus. Vincent Price plays a vampire who invites the writer R. Chetwynd-Hayes (whose stories the segments are based on, and who is played by John Carradine) to a nightclub for (extremely unconvincing) monsters. Probably the closest to actual camp of any movie discussed in this article, this movie also features pop music interludes by performers at the club between segments. (The songs are bangers.)