Tales From the Crypt and The Vault of
Horror Film Tie-ins.
The Crypt and Vault Keepers are not
amused.
(And neither is Uncle Doug)
Tales From the Crypt
Bantam Books.
April 1972
$0.75
The Vault of Horror
Bantam Books
July 1973
$0.95
Back during the early 1970s the British producers
Amicus created for themselves a well earned reputation for producing Horror
Anthology films. Three of these relied on the works of Robert Bloch. They were Torture Garden
Sadly this can't be aid to their foray into
the world of EC Comics.
Tales and Vault are more than adequate chillers.
So long as you are totally unfamiliar with
EC horror comics.
Both films are based upon classic EC tale
and are fairly faithful adaptations.
It's a shame that these two film are totally
lacking in the gleefully ghoulish humor that was EC's trademark.
Both of these "Books to the Films"
are straight up adaptation to the screenplays.
So what you basically have is the film
being retold blow for blow. No improvements or changes. Just a straight
retelling of the script.
In other words......
These books are booooring!
They bored me as a kid and they bored me as
an adult.
This is criminal considering that these
were adapted by Jack Oleck.
Why is this criminal you may ask?
Because Jack wrote stories for the original
EC horror titles. He wrote for the original Vault of Horror and for Weird
Fantasy. Later on he wrote for the DC horror comics such as The House of
Mystery, House of Secrets and Weird War Tales to name a few.
He should have known what it would have taken
to turn out entertaining novelizations.
But then again, maybe improvising was
forbidden.
Alan Dean Foster would have done a much
better job and have done both the films and the EC legacy justice.
Tales From the Crypt Contents:
… And All Through the House (The Vault of Horror #35)
Reflection of Death (Tales from the Crypt #23)
Poetic Justice (The Haunt of Fear No. 12, March–April 1952)
Wish You Were Here (The Haunt of Fear #22, November–December 1953)
Blind Alleys (Tales from the Crypt No. 46, February–March 1955)
The Vault of Horror Contents
Midnight Mess (Tales from the Crypt #35)
The Neat Job (Shock SuspenStories #1)
This Trick’ll Kill You (Tales from the Crypt #33)
Bargain in Death (Tales from the Crypt #28)
Drawn and Quartered (Tales from the Crypt #26)
Trivia Time!!
The Producer had not access to EC comics and based Tales on The Vault of Horror (Ballantine, 1965). and Tales from the Crypt (Ballantine, 1964)
Both of Which I covered HERE!
