“I sometimes foretell things that are frightening.” Please, tell us more! Join this episode’s Grue Crew - Whitney Collazo, Chad Hunt, Jeff Mohr, and special guest host Doc Rotten - as they take a deadly train ride with Dr. Terror who manipulates the cards in the tarot deck he refers to as his house of horrors in the aptly titled Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors.
Decades of Horror: The Classic Era
Episode 59 – Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965)
Five strangers board a train and are joined by a mysterious fortune teller who offers to read their Tarot cards. Five separate stories unfold: An architect returns to his ancestral home to find a werewolf out for revenge; a doctor suspects his new wife is a vampire; an intelligent vine takes over a house; a jazz musician plagiarizes music from a voodoo ceremony; a pompous art critic is pursued by a disembodied hand.
IMDb
Director: Freddie Francis Writer: Milton Subotsky Featured Cast: Framing Story Peter Cushing as Dr. Schreck/Dr. Terror Segment: “Werewolf” Neil McCallum as Jim Dawson Ursula Howells as Deirdre Biddulph Peter Madden as Caleb Katy Wild as Valda Edward Underdown as Tod Segment: “Creeping Vine” Ann Bell as Ann Rogers Bernard Lee as Hopkins Alan Freeman as Bill Rogers Jeremy Kemp as Jerry Drake Sarah Nicholls as Carol Rogers Segment: “Voodoo” Roy Castle as Biff Bailey Kenny Lynch as Sammy Coin Harold Lang as Roy Shine Christopher Carlos as Vrim Segment: “Disembodied Hand” Christopher Lee as Franklyn Marsh Michael Gough as Eric Landor Isla Blair as Pretty girl Judy Cornwell as Nurse Hedger Wallace as Surgeon Segment: “Vampire” Max Adrian as Dr. Blake Jennifer Jayne as Nicolle Carroll Donald Sutherland as Dr. Bob Carroll Al Mulock as Detective
Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors is the first of seven portmanteaus produced by Amicus Productions. It has long been one of Doc’s favorites and he enthusiastically explains exactly why that is. Whitney is taken by the hand makeup in the “Werewolf” segment and also appreciates the disturbing art of Dr. Terror’s tarot deck. Jeff reveals that not only is “portmanteau” one of his favorite words but it’s also one of his favorite film structures. Chad reiterates his dread for disembodied hand scenes and manages to make a connection to the sinking of the Titanic. If you haven’t seen this Freddie Francis directed Cushing/Lee vehicle, your Grue Crew highly recommends you rectify the situation immediately!
The Decades of Horror: The Classic Era Grue Crew plan to release a new episode every other week. Hey, where else will you hear podcasts on films ranging from Dead of Night (1945) to The Hideous Sun Demon (1958) to Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)? The next episode in our very flexible schedule will be The Cat and the Canary (1927), Paul Leni’s silent classic of the “old dark house” subgenre.
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To each of you from each of us, “Thank you so much for listening!
