It is hard to find a horror anthology film that people really like. It’s not surprising. I can’t think of any anthology film that people love. Well, Love Actually. But that is a sign of social psychosis. I’m not sure why people like it. It suffers from all the usual problems of anthology films. In particular, I literally only care about the stand-ins for the sex scene. And that is not enough to put up with the rest of the film, which makes me want to retch.

And this is, I think, the fundamental problem with anthology films. We like some of the stories and we hate other ones. But it’s weird. Because this is also the problem with TV shows like Deadwood: we care about some storylines and we don’t about others. And I think, as with Love Always, we put up with the bad to get to the good. I guess I hate Love Always because there is just way too much bad to wade through to get to the good.

But the anthology film does not have this advantage. It’s one whole story followed by another whole story. There is no clever editing to get through the stories we don’t like. So you get to the end of Dr Terror’s House of Horrors and you can’t deny that there were 10 straight minutes of “Creeping Vine.” It doesn’t matter that there were 15 awesome minutes of “Disembodied Hand”!

And for a long time, I thought this was why people don’t give anthology films the respect they deserve. But I’ve come to see that this is only part of the problem. I’m currently working on an article about the Amicus horror anthology films (link coming soon). And I’m noticed another problem: the frame story.

Horror Anthology Frame Stories

There are two approaches to horror anthologies: those with a frame story and those without. People generally prefer those without. For example, Trilogy of Terror. Most people don’t just forget that they didn’t especially care for “Julie” and “Millicent and Therese.” They forget they watched them at all. They only remember “Amelia” — the one with a terror doll with a spear. (For the record, I love “Julie”!) But without a frame story to focus attention, Trilogy of Terror becomes simply “Amelia.”

But there’s a bigger issue here. A lot of horror anthology stories are wedged into their frame stories. For example, only two of the four stories in The House that Dripped Blood really takes place at the house. The stories themselves are pretty strong. But what’s all that nonsense about the house reflecting the person who lives there? It’s just post hoc nonsense!

Highs and Lows

So horror anthologies suffer from our desire to have continity. It doesn’t matter how high the highs are, the lows spoil it. And even a great story like “Terror Over Hollywood” disappoints us in the context of Torture Garden, where it doesn’t belong because the main character’s sin is so minor that we don’t think it deserves Hell.

But one of the big points of this site is that we shouldn’t allow cinematic lows to diminish the cinematic highs. And that’s more true now than ever. There was a time when you had to go to movie theater to see a film. And more recently, you’d have to watch on live TV. But now, you can just skip right to the part you want to watch.

And as I went through the Amicus horror anthologies, I found that the individual stories were, overall, excellent. Only a couple were disappointing outside their contexts. Most were excellent and it was only in the context of the frame story that they were weak. And some were “Creeping Vine.” You can’t win them all!

Horror Anthology Movie Volume 1 via IMDb under Fair Use.