Amicus once again raiding EC Comics for stories for their anthologies, although the movie this really has more in common with is Dr Terror's House of Horrors - it's got a group of men (no women) who are stuck together in an enclosed environment (in this case a basement of a building) who tell stories about dodgy things they've done and eventually realise they're all dead.
A lot of the stories have a similar sort of structure: our protagonist does something bad, then suffers for it with their life... but they are still entertaining. Daniel Massey kills sister Anna Massey (his real life sister) for her inheritance, unaware she lives in a town of vampires; Terry Thomas nags Glynis Johns about cleanliness to the point of insanity; Curt Jurgens steals a trick from an Indian magician; Michael Craig buries himself alive (in what really is a silly scam); artist Tom Baker gets revenge on people who've ripped him off.
There is some clunky plotting and writing, with plot points being awkwardly set up, but to be honest I didn't mind that much here. The cast give good performances - I did miss the presence of Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee (it felt odd to be watching a British horror film without at least one of them) but there are no weak links; Tom Baker, with his crazy eyes, is especially good. And Roy Ward Baker provides some suspense.
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