Torture Garden (1967)
Directed by Freddie Francis

Film Review

With Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965) proving such a hit at the box office it is perhaps surprising that Amicus waited as long as two years before releasing their next portmanteau horror film.  Maybe it was the company's lack of success with one-story films that led the company to return to the anthology format with Torture Garden, another macabre compendium of low budget horror and suspense.  Having recently scripted one of Amicus's most critically reviled films, The Deadly Bees (1966), the writer Robert Bloch redeems himself with a series of ingenious tales that range from the patently absurd (a head-eating cat and homicidal piano) to the deliciously creepy (cybernetic film stars and Edgar Allen Poe reincarnated as Faust).

Although it probably deserves its reputation as the weakest of Amicus's portmanteau films, Torture Garden offers an abundance of thrills and surprises, and Bloch's penchant for jet black comedy is never out of sight for long.  Bloch's lack of experience as a screenwriter shows in the poor pacing of the first two stories but the author is back on form for the fourth, which is arguably the weirdest, most unsettling tale of any horror anthology film.  What a stroke of genius: to put Edgar Allen Poe in an story which he may well have written!  The graveyard-scented poetry of this diabolically eccentric segment is heightened by the compelling performances from the two actors who carry it, Jack Palance and Peter Cushing.  As ever, it is the ungainly framing story that is the weakest link, and even with Burgess Meredith's delightfully over-the-top presence it proves to be an unwelcome distraction.  Amicus would do much better with its subsequent portmanteau films, but Torture Garden has what it takes to make it a guilty pleasure.  Believe me, you'll never look at Tom Cruise again in the same light.

Film Synopsis

Dr Diabolo lures five strangers into his fairground show, offering them each a glimpse of their future if they will stare into the Shears of Fate.  Colin Williams is the first to volunteer and sees himself visiting an elderly uncle in an attempt to extort cash from him.  The old man dies before he can reveal the location of his stash of gold coins, leading Colin to unearth a coffin in the cellar containing a cat.  The feline apparition offers to reward Colin if he will feed him - on human heads.  Next, Carla Hayes, an ambitious young actress, learns the secret of why Hollywood film stars never seem to age, and suffers the same fate.  Carla's friend Dorothy Endicott sees an even grimmer future for herself as she learns that the one thing a girl must never do is to get between a world-class pianist and his piano.  Victim number four, Ronald Wyatt sees that he is prepared to sell his soul in order to complete his collection of Edgar Allan Poe artefacts - with Poe himself!  Is this a harmless sideshow or is there more to Dr Diabolo than we imagine?