Torture Garden

CinemaSerf

This time it's Burgess Meredith's turn to compere a compendium of four horror stories set around his fairground attraction. He charges each of four people £5 for entry to a secret part of his exhibit where he promises them something portentous that they will never forget. Behind the curtain lies what appears to be a life-size doll - the Fate Atropos - and each learns of a tale that tears down their façade of respectability that these two men and two women have hitherto presented. The segments themselves are short, sweet and though maybe all just a bit predicable (usually the way when there's some moralising afoot) there are still some decent performances from the likes of Peter Cushing, Jack Palance and John Standing to keep these character assessments - and just desserts - interesting. My favourite was the first segment with a brief appearance from Maurice Denham's "Uncle Roger" and an "Azazel" style, malevolent, cat - but the others all have their foreboding messages to deliver too. The production is all standard fayre, it's a bit over-scored and there is certainly a surfeit of dialogue at times, but it's still quite a fun 'Tales of the Unexpected" style series of mysteries that I did quite enjoy.