A sailor is taken to Malpertuis, a strange estate ruled by a sickly Cassavius (Orson Welles) from his bed; when Cassavius dies, the odd provisions of his will prod the bizarre residents into conflict. A collection of sometimes brilliant scenes that appears to be building to some kind of mystical revelation, but always pulls back just when things start to get interesting, and ends with a frustrating "dream inside a dream" climax. It was a flop that cut Harry Kumel's promising directorial career short; he claims that the problem was editorial butchering by United Artists, but the 120 minute director's cut is unsatisfying on its own.
After a shipwreck an aristocrat washes up on a deserted island where a paranoid madman rules from his castle, sentencing all who oppose him to the title dungeon. It's well-meaning attempt to create an original story in the style of Edgar Allen Poe, but it's a failure nonetheless. With double the budget, some script doctoring to clean up the sloppy dialogue, Vincent Price as the villain, and a cople pots of coffee to wake the rest of the cast from their stupor, it could have made for an average movie.
Vincent Price in three Nathaniel Hawthorne stories: a doctor discovers the secret of youth (and more); a student falls in love with a girl who literally kills anything she touches; a cursed man tempts fate by trying to take back an ancestral treasure from a ghost. Interesting tales, though the first two are a bit stagey and more science fiction than horror.
While riding a doomed train carrying a teenage band shooting a music video (!), God and Satan debate the eternal fate of three individuals, whose stories we then watch. Rather than anthology shorts shot specifically for this movie, however, these are full-length horror features that have been edited with a hacksaw to fit into twenty-five minute segments; needless to say, the results are incoherent. Jaw-dropping in its badness; a must-see for fans of crap cinema, and an "I dare you to watch this" movie for others.
The Chinese mafia kidnaps the daughter of a family who runs a martial arts school because they won't pay protection money; they organize a team to go after her. This is the kind of movie where motorcycles explode for no reason, the bad guys forget to tie up their victim, and a team of four guys beats an entire army without taking one casualty. It's cheap and dumb and made by people who are better at fighting than filmmaking, but it's one battle after another and it's never dull.
