Gallery of Horror

John Carradine narrates five horror tales, each with a comically predictable surprise ending. In the first, "The Witches Clock" (sic), The Farrells have purchased an old mansion in Salem Massachusetts, and are warned by the town doctor, Finchley, of the history of witches in the community, and the old clock which they brought up from the attic. Then an old man named Tristram Halbin comes for a visit. The second story, "King of the Vampires" deals with a slight-figured killer, called the King of the Vampires by Scotland Yard, which sends Brenner to investigate. The third, "Monster Raid," is about a man turned zombie when he OD's on his experimental drug, who returns to avenge his death at the hands of his widow and her lover-now husband. "Spark of Life" deals with a doctor Mendell obsessed with the experiments of a thrown-out professor named Erich von Frankenstein, and two of his students who try to restore a cadaver to life. "Count Alucard" (called "Alucard" by Carradine and "Dracula: on the end credits, is a variation on the Dracula story, with the Count acquiring the deed to Carfax Abbey from Harker, as vampiresses and dead bodies start turning up. It, too, has a surprise ending unrelated to Stoker. —<scottandrewh@home.com>