Sunday 14 August 2011

FBTG: The Door








The final 'From Beyond The Grave' is the only tale with a happy ending, mainly because Ian Ogilvy, who stars, is the only customer not to try and rip off 'Temptations Ltd'.

Writer Ogilvy purchases an ornate antique door which he puts on the front of his stationary cupboard. One night, the door swings open revealing not the expected staples and pencils but a stately blue room, covered in cobwebs and imbued with a heavy atmosphere of doom. The room disappears quickly but, over the next few nights, the room returns, for longer and longer each time. Eventually, the dissipated figure of the room's owner, an undead libertine and occultist who has gained eternal life by stealing other's souls, appears, and he has his eye on Ogilvy's wife, the comely Lesley Ann Down...well, he's only human. Sort of.

Being a decent and honest bloke when it comes to shopping has definite advantages, though, and it all turns out okay in the end, although you have to wonder why they had to go through it in the first place.

Interestingly, after 'Witchfinder General', this is the second film in which the suave Mr. Ogilvy hacks a man in 17th century costume to death with an axe, although this time it's smashing up the haunted door which obtains the required effect. Marvellous.

5 comments:

  1. Now I come to think of it, the DVD of this is sitting unwatched in my shelves...let's just blow the dust off the cellophane shrink-wrap..there. The people who sold it me cautioned me against watching it but you've made it sound so compelling...it's a dark night and there's noone else here...what possible harm...?

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  2. this sounds just like the Mark Gattis' Crooked House tv show, the third one...must be what inspired him. i have an amicus boxset in the shape of a coffin but this is sadly not within...

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  3. Ogilvy also hacked a dead man to ....er.... death with an axe in "And Now The Screaming Starts"

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  4. Just brilliant. The stories are very different and much more classy and less throwaway than the other Amicus portmateaus. I'm trying to get hold of a DVD of "Tales that Witness Madness"...

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  5. http://filmfacereview.blogspot.com/2011/08/from-beyond-grave-1974.html

    Review of From Beyond the Grave at Filmface!

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