Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #29686 in VHS
• Released on: 1998-01-01
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 90 minutes

Customer Reviews

Ghoulishly fun horror anthology.
Fans of "THE TWILIGHT ZONE", "TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE", and other horror anthologies will relish this ghoulishly entertaining four part horror film. The movie opens at an asylum in England run by Donald Pleasance who has just recently solved four fascinating cases. This leads to the four patients relating in flashbacks the shocking stories that led them to be brought to the asylum. The first tale, "Mr. Tiger", is about a boy who introduces his bickering parents to his IMAGINARY pet tiger. In "Penny Farthing", an old-fashioned bicycle sends its owner back in time to unveil a horrible crime. The third and best segment, "Mel", stars the beautiful and sexy Joan Collins as a housewife who finds herself competing with her husband's beloved pet tree! And the fourth and final segment, "Luau", is a riveting tale of voodoo and cannibalism featuring Kim Novak as a mother who is better off not knowing what's for dinner. A crazy compilation, but each tale is well-presented and strangely entertaining. A must for fans of way-out horror films. Directed by Freddie Francis reponsible for another equally creepy '70's mystery/horror anthology movie, the original TALES FROM THE CRYPT.

CAMPY IF DATED FUN
TALES THAT WITNESS MADNESS brings us four tales of terror, helmed by reputable horror director Freddie Francis and released in 1973. HALLOWEEN's Donald Pleasance and the venerable British legend JACK HAWKINS frame the four tales with some kind of gibberish about Pleasance finding out the horrible "secrets" of four mental patients. The first is a little boy whose invisible tiger takes an intense dislike to his bickering parents (including Broadway's Georgia Brown in a surprisingly banal performance); Peter McEnery and Suzy Kendall fare a little better in the muddled, but spooky, tale of a bicycle that takes McEnery into the past, for what purpose, I never figured out; sultry Joan Collins and the bland Michael Jayston (NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA) play out a two-character drama about a wife jealous of her husband's new found "tree"; and the ever lovely Kim Novak overemotes her way through a lurid tale about human sacrifice and a particularly disturbing luau. More imaginative direction and some recasting might have made this a classic; however, as it is, it's fun to recapture the style of these horror movies of the 70s. Note that the score was done by Bernard Ebbinghouse, who helmed the Living Strings for several years in the 70s.

Anemic anthology
Director Freddie Francis was recruited for this one after he had some success for Amicus films with Tales from the crypt. This film was made in an attempt to cash on the success Amicus had had with anthologies. This is not the bomb that some make it out to be, but it could be described as being very flat. This film fails to develop any real style and just lacks much of a punch. The framing story has Donald Pleasance claiming he has had a major break through with patients he works with at the asylum and then we get to hear all of their stories. The first story centers around a boy who has an invisible tiger he talks to and the tiger doesn't like the boy's argumentitive parents. This story is almost painfully dull, no real thrills and stale performances. The second story steps it up a notch or two as we deal with a time travel story. A man inherits an old picture and a bicycle from a relative and the picture of his Uncle Albert pulls him to the bicycle and that in turn takes him back in time. The story is mildy interesting, but is greatly helped by a very fast pace. This story could have been even better with stronger lead performances. Some Amicus films like Torture Garden and Asylum did not have great stories, but they helped themselves out by getting some veteren character actors to make them stronger. The third story is the strangestof the four, but certainly the best. Joan Collins turns is her usual solid showing as a wife competing for husband's affections with a tree. An odd concept, but they pull it off with decent acting and by showing the trees gradual transformation from an object to something almost human. The fourth story is quite possibly worse than the first if only because it is every bit as dull and it is even longer in legnth. Kim Novak swoons over a client while he plots to use her daughter as a human sacrifice. This one is so drawn out with virtually nothing to redeem it. Freddie Francis did a number of fine horror films such as Dracula has risen from the grave, Nightmare and the Creeping flesh and many of his films benefitted from some nice visuals, but this film has very few of those to offer. This one is worth seeing at least once just for the tree segment.