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The Vault of Horror is VASTLY SUPERIOR to this film!

posted 9 years ago by Navaros
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The Vault of Horror (1973) is VASTLY SUPERIOR to this film.

Here are some of the reasons why:

TFTC (1972) lets its plotlines drag on way longer than is necessary.

TVOH (1973) doesn't waste any screen-time letting its plotlines drag. Instead, it gets right to the point, as tales like this should.

TFTC (1972) is barely a horror. It's more like a general melodrama.

TVOH (1973) is chockful of horror content through and through (with a couple of exceptions, like the not-very-good insurance scam tale).

TFTC (1972) has very little horror action, and what little horror action that is present is impotent.

Impotency Cop-out I.e. #1: Undead Grimsdyke doesn't actually do anything, and the film fades to black just before he is about to do something.

Impotency Cop-out I.e #2: The psycho Santa doesn't actually do anything, except for massage the whore's shoulders for a few seconds (why does he even do that?...it makes no sense!), and then the film fades to black.

Impotency Cop-out I.e. #3: Other than bark, Shane doesn't actually do anything. Just before he is allegedly about to attack the major, the screen fades to black.

TVOH (1973) is chockful of gritty horror action which resulted in it being censored multiple times. 'Nuff said.

TFTC (1972)'s frame story has multiple plot holes.

Plothole I.e. #1: The film clearly states multiple times that the guy full of embalming fluid must live forever and can never die. Yet the film inexplicably contradicts itself by randomly fading to black and showing him dead in the CK's lair.

Plothole I.e. #2: Why would the CK have to lie to his prisoners? That is behavior consistent with a weakling, not with a powerful gatekeeper of Hell.

Plothole I.e. #3: Why would the prisoners forget that they died in the first place?

Plothole I.e. #4: Why are the non-living, supposedly metaphysical prisoners lumped together with physical,living human tourists at the start? That's mighty stupid storytelling.

Plothole I.e. #5: Why would the CK make prisoners wait around while he tells other prisoners' stories in front of them? He might as well take one prisoner into his lair at a time, tell that one prisoner his or her story, and then immediately send him or her to Hell. Taking multiple prisoners into his lair at once makes no sense as it is runs contrary to his purpose which is to get as many souls into Hell as he can.

Plothole I.e. #6: By taking prisoners into his lair in groups, the CK gives himself another problem: after the first prisoner falls into Hell, the others will refuse to leave his lair so as to avoid the same fate. Since the CK is a frail old fogey in this film, he obviously isn't going to physically force them into the pit. So, what of the prisoners who refuse to leave the lair? They could just hang out there with the CK forever. So why wouldn't they? It's better than Hell.

TVOH (1973's) frame story has one plothole too (one guy suddenly & randomly knows what is happening at the end, even though he didn't know for the rest of the film), but that's still a lot less significant than the multitude of plotholes from TFTC (1972).

TFTC (1972) doesn't feel like EC comics at all (this ties into the earlier point about TFTC (1972) being far more of a melodrama than a horror).

TVOH (1973) feels exactly like EC comics, except for the British accents.

In sum, TFTC (1972) is much worse than TVOH (1973). For TVOH (1973) to have less acclaim and lower ratings is absurd.

[–] EleazarHisSon (770) a year ago

Most of the rated movies by the MPAA in the Amicus anthology are rated PG, so not sure if they are are supposed to be these extreme horror movies. Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965), Torture Garden (1967) and The Monster Club (1981) are not rated. The Vault of Horror is in fact the only entry that is rated R, although there was a cut PG version.

[–] Tabbycat (915) a year ago

There are actually two different cut version of Vault, with the later PG release losing the most (five cuts or stilled frames). But even the original US “R” release had three cuts. You can compare versions on the Shout Factory Blu-Ray.

“Tales From the Crypt,” though released with a PG rating, was missing two shots of extreme violence. Before the success of The Exorcist, it was thought that most horror should be PG so as not lose out on younger viewers assumed to be the genre’s biggest fans.

[–] EleazarHisSon (770) a year ago

I find very little information about Tales from the Crypt being cut. IMDb says a cut version was given an X rating by the British board, though I suppose that may have been the version also given to US theaters which subsequently got the PG.

Yeah, The Texas Chain Saw Masacre and The Exorcist are generally considered to have started the video violence controversy, but I guess the British Hammer Film Productions and Amicus with their old horror movies were the early pioneers in that field. I find the staking scene in Horror of Dracula (1958) intense still today, have to imagine what it was on the big screen in the 1950's. The scene that was cut from The Vault of Horror (showing the neck tapped for blood) is fairly graphic too.

[–] Tabbycat (915) a year ago

The two cuts for US release of “Tales From the Crypt” are well documented in horror mags (and previous VHS releases):

Poetic Justice — bloody removed heart shown beating after being fully unwrapped

Wish You Were Here — extra shots of severed body parts after wife tries to kill already-dead husband with sword

As for Vault, I don’t believe the full-motion, color tap-in-the-neck sequence would be any big deal today as it would be classified “comic horror violence” — an actual MPAA term now used to explain an R or PG-13 rating.

[–] EleazarHisSon (770) a year ago

There is nothing about Tales from the Crypt being cut on either movie-censorship.com or Wikipedia (it says The Vault of Horror was cut and goes into detail as to where).. But they do mention that on IMDb's Alternate Versions page, I see now. The heart scene was cut from the British release, but the US release has subsequently one more cut to get a PG. As you say. Well, perhaps the better question is why did the MPAA decide to rate these British horror movies as allowed for young audiences (they even gave Dracula Has Risen from the Grave a 'G') when they were rated X (18) with cuts in Britain where they came from?

[–] Tabbycat (915) a year ago

Brits have always been much stricter than the US on movie violence. They often require cuts to even get an X rating.

[–] EleazarHisSon (770) a year ago

Well, the MPAA likes to cut horror movies for an R rating too but that didn't really start until the 80's, I think, and it's true that traditionally the British have loved to cut stuff. Oftentimes, they got an even more censored version.

On a second thought, I think PG movies could be considered a lot more adult in the past. There were some PG and later PG-13 movies my parents wouldn't allow me to see until I was old enough and not without their supervision. Disney movies nowadays are given PG and they've pretty much disposed of the G rating, but back then there were PG movies that were seen just like R movies basically. In other countries, they could also have higher ratings.

[–] Tabbycat (915) a year ago

Don’t know where you got the idea that cutting X pics to R started in the 80’s, but you could not be more wrong. It’s true that there were more “director’s cuts” released in that decade and the one following, but those were mostly unrated. A great number of major films from the late 60’s and early 70’s were cut from X to R, including:

The Devils
A Clockwork Orange
Midnight Cowboy*
Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein
Andy Warhol’s Dracula
Girl on a Motorcycle
The Street Fighter

*— the assistant director disputes this, but CARA records support it

Interestingly, the new director’s cut of The Wild Bunch got an NC-17 (the new X) when submitted but was allowed to retain its original R rating. The current version of A Clockwork Orange on all video releases is the original X-rated version regardless of what rating is on the box. It is the alternate “R” cut shown in US theaters from 1973 on that is now rare.

[–] EleazarHisSon (770) a year ago

I didn't say the MPAA never cut movies from X to R before the 1980's, and I was talking about horror movies in particular. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre which I mentioned before (though I didn't point it out in the post) was censored that way in 1974. I meant basically that they seemed to become manifestly anti-horror by the 80's, as in almost every horror and slasher was cut just for the sake of it and a middle finger to the genre. Before that, there was some outrage over that The Exorcist wasn't rated X, and it seems the MPAA made sure and vowed to never repeat that 'mistake' again.

To THE EDITOR:

JACK VALENTI, Presidont of the Motion Picture Association of America, reached new heights with his reply, on Feb. 24, to Roy Meacham's article, “How Did ‘The Exorcise Escape an X Rating?”

I was fascinated to read that “The Exorcist” contains “no excessive violence,” that it “deals in the metaphysical unknown, always terrifying because it cannot be defined or readily comprehended,” that “much of what might concern some people is not on the screen: it is in the mind and imagination of the viewer.”

I would be curious to see the print Mr, Valenti saw; obviously it is not the print of “The Exorcist” I saw, the print that contains the longest, bloodiest medical operation sequence in the history of movies and a close, repellent, rhythmically edited segment in which we see Father Karras's. head hitting every step on his way to the street.

As for the “indefinable” terror of “The Exorcist,” it seems to me that director William Friedkin and author William Peter Blatty did a pretty good job of defining it. I'm afraid that even Mir. Valenti's precious public —that “65 per cent of moviegoers” who support the MPAA Rating Board—would be hard put to deny that “The Exorcist” is the most graphic major horror film they've ever seen. The green bile, the urine, the swivelling heads, were not in my mind and imagination; they were right on the screen.

https://www.nytimes.com/1974/03/31/archives/the-exorcist-is-not-violent-sickening.html

[–] Tabbycat (915) a year ago

I think you’ve got it backwards.

If more horror films were cut in the 1980’s to achieve an “R,” it’s because the versions submitted to the MPAA had much more extreme violence. This arguably is traceable back to “The Exorcist” in 1973, but is mostly tied to 1979’s “Dawn of the Dead.” That film was one of the first ever to be successfully released nationwide without an MPAA rating. It opened the floodgates to unrated gorefests playing in malls all through the 80’s and beyond.

As for “The Exorcist,” I’ve read extensively on its MPAA rating, including everything I could find published on it. There is no doubt that the film, at that time, contained “X” material (the bloody crucifix masturbation scene in particular). Everyone who saw the theatrical cut expected it to be so rated, including Warner Brothers, who publicly declared they would not cut a single frame and would release it with an X if it came to that. They knew they had a monster hit, and had no intention of watering it down one bit.

In the end, the eight-member ratings board simply voted to give it an “R.” No negotiations, no appeal. Was there pressure? Did Valenti or other industry figures have a little “talk” with the board? I could find no evidence of that. Maybe they simply decided individually this wasn’t a hill to die on. I won’t say we’ll never know, but it’s been half a century and nothing new has come to light.

[–] EleazarHisSon (770) a year ago

Supposedly, the horror movie that the MPAA ever went the toughest on was My Bloody Valentine which literally had all of its violence stripped out to secure an R-rating. It came out in 1981, a year after Friday the 13th. Also Possession which came out in 1981 too.

https://screenrant.com/horror-movies-that-were-censored/#my-bloody-valentine-1981

Although still, other countries like Germany, Australia and the UK etc usually edited the 'video nasties' even much more, perhaps even banning them altogether.

[–] Tabbycat (915) a year ago

“ Why would the CK make prisoners wait around while he tells other prisoners' stories in front of them? ”

Group therapy.
Popular in the 70’s.

[–] GreenGoblinsOck8 (7993) a year ago

LOL!