Waste of time

Stylish but barely mediocre overall

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Certainly among five different stories within one movie, there must be something redeeming. It certainly isn't the use of the castle from American International's cheepy "The Terror" (1963), so different looking as far as film stock is concerned that it becomes jarring every time the castle is shown, or the sets used within the film itself which seemed to be recycled from the first sequence throughout the fifth. The first sequence is probably the best, featuring narrator John Carradine in his only acting part within the film, playing the man who pays a visit upon the newleyweds who have purchased an abandoned mansion with a secret, followed by two individual stories about vampires (one with the obvious and already used name of Alucard) that features a Van Helsing with a secret (slightly amusing). But the absolute worst has Lon Chaney Jr. delivering his usual lame performance as a scientist who interferes in the experiments of some of his students, and gets the wrong body for their attempts to bring a Frankenstein like monster to life. Carradine and Chaney only appear in one sequence each, and at least Carradine's narration is subtle, if not juvenile. However, the younger actors all play multiple roles and their acting is certainly not anything worth writing about.

What first began life in 1966 as "Dr. Terror's Gallery of Horror" evolved over the years with new titles for cinema ("The Blood Suckers") and television ("Return from the Past"), easily available today under the shortened title "Gallery of Horror." John Carradine had earlier garnered the title role in "The Wizard of Mars" for director/special effects maven David L. Hewitt, who here managed to corral Lon Chaney and Rochelle Hudson to add greater marquee value to what arguably appears to be his masterwork. Rather than science fiction, truly impossible on such chintzy budgets, we have traditional, old fashioned horror, an anthology film inspired (as one can guess by the title) by the 1964 Amicus feature "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors" (one character even named after Peter Cushing!). Conceived by CREEPY editor Russ Jones, an expert in short stories, Hewitt spent approximately $20,000 on a super fast 5 day schedule at Ray Dorn's Hollywood Stage that left the actors breathless, and audiences speechless (Al Adamson and John Carradine filmed "Blood of Dracula's Castle" there around that same time). Virtually all the stock footage is culled from AIP's Roger Corman/Poe films (plus "The Terror"), its main musical theme cribbed from 1960's "The Hypnotic Eye." Carradine is the unnamed narrator, introducing on screen all five stories but only appearing in the opener, "The Witches Clock" (13 minutes), in which a young couple move into a New England castle that 300 years before housed a Salem witch, with an enchanted clock that revives the spirit of Carradine's Tristram Halbin (little characterization in just two scenes). Second, and perhaps weakest, is "King Vampire" (12 minutes), feebly depicting Scotland Yard's hunt for a vampire that supposedly has the face of a corpse, and how they've detained all suspects that fit that description! Next is another poorly executed story, "Monster Raid" (16 minutes), with Rochelle Hudson's adulterous wife getting her comeuppance from her dead husband, whose resurrection was made possible by his own curiously vague formula. Fourth, "Spark of Life" (15 minutes) casts top billed Lon Chaney as Dr. Mendell, the only mad scientist of his entire career, a colleague of Hamburg's Baron Erik Von Frankenstein, continuing experiments that involve bringing the dead back to life via electricity. His greatest mistake is in choosing the corpse of an executed murderer out for revenge, but Chaney really acts up a storm, running the gamut from elation to disappointment, deadly serious as he attempts to undo his success, with predictable results. Last is "Count Dracula" (13 minutes), a seriously crippled retread of Stoker's familiar tale, featuring a woefully inadequate Mitch Evans in place of Carradine as Dracula. As bad as it undoubtedly is, this film remains ideal for younger audiences who favor harmless terror for late night viewing, which was how this monster kid saw it on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater on four occasions: Nov 11 1972 (paired with first feature "Son of Frankenstein"), Dec 29 1973 (paired with second feature "Monster on the Campus"), Nov 30 1974 (paired with first feature "The Horror of Frankenstein"), and Jan 7 1978 (paired with first feature "Count Dracula").

I also saw this in the late 1960s and/or 1970s on Chiller Theater here in Pittsburgh (WIIC Channel 11 NBC affiliate). I only ever saw this on Chiller Theater - never anywhere else. The title it had when I saw it on Chiller Theater was "King Vampire". The title refers to one of the episodes. This film utterly amazed me in that it so completely had all the production values of a high school play! This thing makes Ed Wood look like a big-budget A-list director! I kept thinking that any minute Chilly Billy was going to break in and announce that the movie was a joke, a phony production slapped together by the Channel 11 guys. You have got to see this to believe it.

This is a terrible film and any star, other than John Carradine, would have been embarrassed to be in this mess. After all, that is truly horrible in every way. I am not exaggerating to say that it looks like a particularly bad local community theater had tryouts. Those who did not make the cut were then put in this film!! There are many actors attempting (horribly) English accents--some of which would be worse than if you had Jay Silverheels or Zha Zha Gabor try English accents!! And many could not even read their lines--annunciating the wrong syllables and badly reading the cue cards. In addition, while it's supposed to be a horror anthology, I think they really intended to make it a horrible anthology, as none of the stories are the least bit scary or ironic or intelligently written. I am NOT exaggerating to say that I think "Dr. Terror's Gallery of Horrors(?)" is every bit as bad, if not worse, than the worse Ed Wood film! Because of this, it might make great viewing by bad movie freaks--all others, however, should avoid it like the plague! the bottom line is that nothing about this film works and it is so completely amateurish and banal that it flabbergasted me! Why hadn't I heard about a film this bad sooner?!