Teaming up the masters of the horror anthology film, Amicus, with the master horror story writer, Robert Bloch, would seem to guarantee an enjoyable and scary fright flick.  However, in the case of the film under discussion, this didn't quite prove to be the case...the movie, alas, showcases some of Bloch's weaker efforts and it really delivers the goods only in the final sequence.  This may be why Torture Garden has remained relatively obscure all these years--because there seems to be...

By HARVEY F. CHARTRAND

In Octave Mirabeau’s novel of the same name published in 1899, the Torture Garden is a place in China where beauty and decay combine to produce exotic flowers blooming in abundance, fertilized by the rotting corpses of the executed.

In Freddie Francis’ 1967 portmanteau film, the Torture Garden is a secret exhibit at an amusement park somewhere in England. Sideshow charlatan Dr. Diabolo (played with malevolent gusto by Burgess Meredith) makes his pitch to the rubes: "Ladies and gentlemen, I have a private exhibit. It is not for the faint of heart, because what you will find will be more terrifying and more horrendous than your deepest, darkest dreams. Now then, who has the courage to step inside?"

Well, in the best funhouse tradition, the gawkers are being taken for a ride, because Torture Garden is easily one of the least frightening horror pictures this reviewer has ever seen. Whatever merit this film possesses is of the nostalgic variety. Cinefodder like Torture Garden, no matter how mediocre, takes this old boomer back to the halcyon days of his youth in the counterculture sixties. Instantly recognizable to me were the faces of not only the great actors I grew up with, but of a host of supporting players whose names I never knew. So I am willing to forgive Torture Garden its hackneyed storylines (save for the brilliant final episode, totally at variance with the rest of the picture).

Screenwriter Robert Bloch recycles four of his Weird Tales for this Amicus anthology film. Despite being one of the few writers of that era whose name was a box-office draw and went above the title, Bloch was a very uneven talent. His prolific output ranges from gems of macabre fiction (such as Psycho and Yours Truly, Jack The Ripper) to the most clichéd and underdeveloped drivel (like The Skull and The Night Walker).

In Torture Garden, the audience must endure three of Bloch’s weakest efforts before enjoying the sheer storytelling genius of the final episode. The smooth framing device set at the fairground isn’t bad either, benefiting from good dialogue and the polished professionalism of a fine cast (including Hammer veteran Michael Ripper).

The episodic nature of Amicus films like Asylum and Tales From The Crypt (both 1972) allowed the producers to stretch their slim budgets by hiring top stars for three or four days only. For Torture Garden, they were able to bring in Burgess Meredith, Jack Palance, Peter Cushing and Robert Hutton, as well as solid character actors like Niall MacGinnis (immortal as the evil warlock in Night of the Demon); Maurice Denham, memorable in such scare fare as Paranoiac and Blood Beast From Outer Space; and Hollywood blacklist evader David Bauer (Journey To The Unknown, Endless Night).

When we first see Dr. Diabolo, he is in disguise, sporting a cool goatee and waxed moustache, and costumed in an executioner’s hood and cape, as he shows off his display of medieval torture racks, before proceeding to a dismal reenactment of death by electric chair. Then it’s off with the executioner’s wardrobe and into some natty threads and a snap-brim fedora.

Sharply attired Dr. Diabolo (now smoking from an extended cigarette holder) promises his customers that the Torture Garden is more than just an entertainment. And the fairground barker (Timothy Bateson) outside the tent promises that: "You’ll shake, you’ll shiver, but it’s all good fun. The greatest thrill you ever had in your life!" If only this were true, and I could report to you, gentle HORROR-WOOD readers, that I have unearthed another undiscovered horror classic. Sadly, Torture Garden is no Matango.

Dr. Diabolo overpromises and underdelivers, as his backroom attraction (for which he charges an extra five pounds admission--still a lot of money) consists of a "statue" of the goddess Atropos (not really a statue at all but a strange-looking actress in gypsy finery who tries in vain to remain still).

As Dr. Diabolo explains, Atropos is a figure from ancient Greek legend, the Goddess of Destiny who offers customers a disturbing peek into their individual futures. "In her left hand is the skein of life, and in her right are the shears of fate. Each colored thread represents a human life, and the shears have the power to cut it short. But this Sibyl has a very strange magic and power." Anyone who gazes into the reflecting shears will tap into a "memory of the future" and witness their own death, brought about by a character defect run riot.

In the case of our four protagonists, the old adage that "character is destiny" rings true. Most everyone in Torture Garden is guilty of an all-consuming greed, paying the ultimate price for their enthusiastic embrace of this capital sin. Keep an eye out for the unattractive woman playing Atropos, as she makes a brief appearance in each episode.

The first tail (I mean tale), based on Bloch’s short story Enoch, involves a layabout (Michael Bryant) who murders his frail uncle so he can get his hands on a rumored fortune, only to end up under the spell of a witch’s familiar spirit--a telepathic cat that forces the interloper to feed him human heads. Utter rubbish, with only the excellent set design of a cottage interior to recommend it! When will they ever learn that cats just aren’t scary? They’re cute critters, even when shot from low angles to a thunderous score.

The next story, adapted from Bloch’s screamer Terror Over Hollywood, relates how an ambitious starlet (fetching Beverly Adams) discovers the dark secret of her favorite actor’s apparent agelessness. Her idol is actually a robot with a metal body beneath the fleshy exterior. Now that she knows the straight skinny, the star’s entourage must shut her up. The starlet is whisked away to a clinic where she is transformed into "a living doll"--an "ageless" screen siren worshipped by the fans.

This episode is frankly silly, but enjoyable nonetheless, mainly because of bad hipster dialogue, the absurdity of an obvious London setting substituting for Hollywood, and the crass middle-aged producer types played by David Bauer and John Phillips (Village Of The Damned).

Story number three (based on Bloch’s Mr. Steinway) is the weakest of the lot. The mother of a craven concert pianist (John Standing) continues to dominate her son from beyond the grave--through his Steinway Louis XV Grand Piano. When the ivory tinkler’s avaricious fiancée (Barbara Ewing) arrives on the scene, the piano chases her around the room and kills her. What childish nonsense! Killer pianos are dumb, not scary.

Finally, we hit pay dirt with an episode that seems to have been lifted from an entirely different and much better movie. It’s like an unofficial installment of AIP’s Roger Corman Edgar Allan Poe cycle plunked into a substandard Amicus production. The Man Who Collected Poe pits two collectormaniac completists against each other: famous American author Lancelot Canning (Englishman Peter Cushing) and visiting English academic Ronald Wyatt (American Jack Palance). Both gentlemen will do literally anything to satisfy their Poe craving.

Palance’s performance is nothing short of revelatory. Watching this hunky actor expertly play the tweedy, pipe-stroking, fussy and slightly manic Poe collector makes one aware of his astonishing range, displayed only intermittently over a career spanning six decades. With the exception of Vincent Price, no other American actor could have pulled off the role of a man so obsessed by Poe that he wants to become him.

It is a blessing that Christopher Lee was too busy to play Wyatt (as the role was offered to him first by producer Milton Subotsky). No disrespect intended, but we are quite familiar with Lee-Cushing pairings. In this episode, Cushing has to work hard not to be blown off the screen by the constantly inventive and watchable Palance.

The name of Cushing’s character, Sir Lancelot Canning, is a clue hinting at the shock ending--that is, the eerie unveiling of the still living Poe himself. Canning is the fictitious author mentioned in Poe’s The Fall Of The House Of Usher. In an effort to calm Roderick Usher’s anxieties about his sister’s possible premature burial, the narrator reads to him from the Mad Trist by Sir Launcelot Canning.

As noted by Poe scholar Martha Womack: "The hero of the tale was Ethelred who must break into the dwelling of the hermit and slay the dragon who guards the palace of gold with a silver floor in order to capture the brass shield which hung upon its wall. As his friend read, it seemed that ‘...from some remote portion of the mansion, there came indistinctly to [their] ears what might have been, in its exact similarity of character, the echo...of the very sound[s] that Sir Launcelot had so particularly described.’"

Torture Garden ends with the revelation that our tour guide Dr. Diabolo is indeed old Scratch himself. The bit of legerdemain editing that brings on the final "scare" is anything but seamless, and the film ends on a howl of bitter laughter at the shoddiness of it all, though Meredith works like the devil to make up for the threadbare production values. Grinning satanically while creeping around his waxworks and torture devices, Meredith gives his all to the role he was born to play--King Leer.

By the way, Torture Garden should not be confused with The Garden Of Torture, a bad 1976 French film based on Mirabeau’s exotic and erotic novel.

Thanks, Harv.  'Tis true, Torture Garden offers at best a mixed harvest...one or maybe two effectively chilling tales, with the rest of the flick just so much substandard scare fare that does appear to represent Robert Bloch's least effective material to reach the silver screen.  But there is that great last sequence with Jack Palance and Peter Cushing and we do have Burgess Meredith popping his eyes and grinning evilly and generally chewing up the scenery in the grand manner he established for himself as the Penguin in the Sixties Batman TV series.  And we do have the fast-forward button on our DVD players, after all.   With this in mind, Torture Garden may offer up a skimpy yield overall, but it's still well worth checking out.

Article copyright © Harvey F. Chartrand

Return To Archives