From Beyond the Grave (1973)
Starring: Peter Cushing, Donald Pleasance, David Warner, Angela Pleasance, Lesley Anne-Down
Director: Kevin Connor
Synopsis: 7th instalment of Amicus omnibus horror shorts.
Reviewed by: Ali Khan

 

 

Amicus' seventh horror anthology is marginally better than its rather dreadful predecessor, The Vault of Horror, but once again the five stories prove decidedly uneven, with only a handful of genuinely worthwhile moments. While the individual tales are certainly bizarre enough, most are undermined by an excess of silliness. Atmosphere is in desperately short supply and genuine scares are scarcer still.

The sole exception is the Donald Pleasence segment, which stands head and shoulders above everything else in the film. It is an offbeat, unsettling little tale that demonstrates just how effective these anthologies could be when everything clicked into place.

Unfortunately, the remaining stories never reach the same standard. Despite their relatively short running times, the overall effect is strangely slow and turgid. Worse still, the linking story featuring Peter Cushing not only squanders one of British horror's greatest actors but is itself surprisingly weak. One of the pleasures of the Amicus anthologies was usually the clever manner in which the individual stories were brought together for a final sting in the tail. Here, even that customary twist is disappointingly absent.

A decidedly underwhelming effort and one of the weaker entries in the Amicus cycle.