During the 1960s and 1970s, British horror cinema was enjoying its zenith. The era has become largely synonymous with the luscious Gothic horror films produced by Hammer Film Productions, but sticking purely to Hammer would do yourself a disservice. There are many great horrors from that era from many companies, but the only company that can be named in the same breath as Hammer Film Productions for sheer quantity and quality of horror is Amicus Productions.

Though the output of Amicus was often confused with that of Hammer there were several keys differences – Hammer films were normally set sometime between Napoleon and World War I and mostly took place in a mythical Central Europe, where as the Amicus films were almost always set in the modern day and mostly took place in the UK. The main difference though is that Amicus specialised in a kind of film that Hammer never even attempted: horror anthologies.

Started by two expatriate American producers and screenwriters Max J. Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky. The company made a few films in the early 1960s before striking it big in 1965, with a double punch of Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) and Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965) – both starring Peter Cushing. The latter film was their first horror anthology, apparently inspired by the success of the first great British horror and anthology Dead of Night (1945).

Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors ushered in a long series of seven such anthology films from Amicus, with seven films produced in total between 1965 and 1974. Though this was their speciality they also produced a number of standalone horror films, but the anthologies are what people remember. In fact, when deciding on our Amicus handful there was only one standalone film that we even considered adding to the list, but it was difficult deciding just which anthology films would be included out of their seven.

The House That Dripped Blood (1971)

The House That Dripped Blood (1971) was the first of the Amicus films that attempted to do something truly interesting with the anthologies frame narrative. Directed by Peter Duffell and written by Robert Bloch and Russ Jones (the former adapting his own short stories for three of the four segments of the film) it revolves around the strange goings on that have happened through the history of an old country house where a film actor has recently disappeared. The segments star Joss Ackland, Peter Cushing, Denholm Elliot, Christopher Lee, Jon Pertwee, Ingrid Pitt – a wonderful cast of character actors and horror icons of the era.

Tackling the well-worn horror topics of voodoo, waxworks, and vampires, the film puts and enjoyable and original enough spin on all of these subjects to keep the segments gripping. The first segment with Elliot also seems to have prefigured ideas later done by Stephen King in his novel The Dark Half. Also of note is the final segment featuring Jon Pertwee as the film actor whose disappearance kick starts the frame narrative, where the horror actor laments the declining standards of production in Gothic horror and when speaking of Dracula mentions “Bela Lugosi, not this new fellow.” How they got away with these digs at Hammer, not to mention Christopher Lee who also starred in the film, is a wonder.

Asylum (1972)

Asylum (1972) features perhaps the best frame narrative of any Amicus anthology, almost up there with Dead of Night itself. Something of a transitional film for the studio it was their last film written by Robert Bloch, again adapting his own short stories, and their first directed by former Hammer directed Roy Ward Baker. Featuring Geoffrey Bayldon, Peter Cushing, Britt Ekland, Herbert Lom, Patrick Magee, Bruno Morse, Barbara Parkins, Robert Powell, and Charlotte Rampling it again shows the sheer breadth and depth of great actors that you got for the price of admission to these anthology films.

Only containing three “proper” segments (told in flashback I mean), but the frame narrative forms it’s own segment at the end of the film. We see voodoo, an animated mannequin, a murderous imaginary friend, and soul transference all tackled with, going for a bit more esoteric subjects than The House That Dripped Blood. The true strength of Asylum is in its frame narrative rather than its individual segments though.

Tales From the Crypt (1972)

Tales from the Crypt (1972) saw Amicus turn to the legendary American EC Comics of the 1950s for their next source of short stories to adapt. Scripted by Subotsky himself and directed by two-time Oscar winning cinematographer Freddie Francis, who directed many films for both Amicus and Hammer in the 1960s and 1970s. The film features Joan Collins, Peter Cushing, Richard Greene, Ian Hendry, Patrick Magee, Nigel Patrick, and Ralph Richardson as the Crypt Keeper (here an English gentleman in a monks robe rather than the usual cackling skeletal figure).

The segments in this film are truly wonderful and exemplars of these films; a woman trapped in her house at Christmas by a maniac dressed as Santa Claus, a philanderer caught in a time loop of his own demise, a pair of snobs who ruin an elderly neighbour only to find revenge visited upon them from beyond the grave, a Monkey’s Paw type story based around a Chinese figurine, and the cold revenge served upon the incompetent director of a home for the blind by its residents. The film is let down slightly by a mediocre frame narrative compared with their last two films, including a frankly baffling twist when you consider how two of the segments end. We also must mention that the choice of this film was a toss-up between Tales from the Crypt and its sequel The Vault of Horror (1973), and they go great together, but we gave the edge to the former in a close call.

From Beyond the Grave (1974)

From Beyond the Grave (1974), in addition to being this blogs namesake, was the last official Amicus anthology film. Directed by Amicus newcomer Kevin Connor with Raymond Christodoulou and Robin Clarke adapting stories by R. Chetwynd-Hayes, it feels slightly apart from the rest of Amicus anthology films which feel like a progressing series tonally. This might be a strength rather than a weakness though. It also shows a return to strong frame narrative based around an antiques shop run by Peter Cushing, the only person to appear in all of the Amicus anthology films. The cast is rounded out by Ian Bannen, Ian Carmichael, Lesley-Anne Down, Angela Pleasance, Donald Pleasance, Ian Ogilvy, and David Warner in a mix of rising and fading talent.

The segments all have a slightly tongue-in-cheek feel, but even then they felt the need to do an all-out comedy segment (this film features the best comedy segment of any anthology horror, along with Dead of Night and The Vault of Horror). They all revolve around items purchased from the shop by less than honest means, a mirror bought at a reduced price through deceit entices its owner to kill, a stolen medal spells trouble for an office drone in a loveless marriage, a swapped price tag on a snuff box leads to its owner not enjoying snuffing it (yes, the pun is made in the film), and a door purchased by a thief has a little too much of the original owner in it, and ending in a nice twist epilogue. These segments are all good fun and there isn’t a miss among them.

The Beast Must Die (1974)

The Beast Must Die (1974) directed by Paul Annett and written by Michael Winder adapting James Blish is the only standalone feature length Amicus film to make it on to our handful. Part horror and party mystery, we see a millionaire hunter gather a group of people who may or may not be werewolves to his secluded estate in an attempt to hunt his most dangerous game yet. We the audience are invited to try to work out who the werewolf is ourselves during the werewolf break (added by producer Subotsky which Annett hated). Oh, it’s also a Blaxploitation film.

The hunter is played by Calvin Lockhart, and the werewolf suspects by Michael Chadbon, Peter Cushing, Michael Gambon, and Charles Gray. There’s a touch of The Avengers about the film with the technology Lockhart’s character Tom uses to hunt the werewolf. It’s a real mishmash of genres, populated by a small cast of great character actors, and just good camp B-movie fun. A unique film, it was actually the last horror film produced by Amicus who would make three adaptations of Edgar Rice Burroughs works before ceasing production altogether in 1976.

Amicus was the main rival to Hammer in the horror market of the 1960s and 1970s, and while Hammer had entered into an almost terminal decline in the latter decade Amicus was producing their best work. Although they didn’t make as much of an impact on British popular culture as their big brother, and their work often mistaken for their competitors by your man on the street, the films produced by Amicus are just as respected as those by Hammer by genre fans and by those in the industry.

Amicus ended with more of a whimper than Hammer’s go out kicking and screaming in To the Devil a Daughter (1976), but Subotsky did try to keep the anthology series going with independent efforts The Uncanny (1977) and The Monster Club (1981) even going so far as to by the rights to a number of Stephen King’s short stories in the 1980s but all that came from this was a credit on Cat’s Eye (1985). Personally your reviewers would have killed to see an Amicus produced adaptation of stories from King’s Night Shift collection, but that’s a dream for another day.

The anthology film faded away for a long time but its something that’s almost uniquely suited to horror and to horror short stories especially, which are all too often a setup to some macabre punchline. They have made a comeback in recent years with V/H/S (2012) and its sequels, A Christmas Horror Story (2015), and Southbound (2015) but we’re still a long way from the days when a single studio could guarantee you a fun horror anthology every couple of years.