Each Story a Flower

Film: Torture Garden
Format: Streaming video from Tubi TV on Fire!

We’re going to dive head-first into a horror subgenre that I’ve attacked before with Torture Garden. This is not torture porn, despite the name. Its 1967 pedigree would put it before even the torture porn-like films of the early and mid-‘70s. No, this is a (sigh) horror anthology film, a film that will give us a framing story and four tales of various levels of scary. Truthfully, they aren’t going to be that scary for the most part. As frequently happens in an anthology like this one, the stories are essentially little morality tales that cause people to realize their own “sins,” perhaps before it is too late.

There are some pros and cons for this one going in. On the positive side, these are all tales written by Robert Bloch, who also wrote Psycho, so at least we’re going to have some quality when it comes to the writing. We’ve also got some classic actors from the era including Peter Cushing and all-time champion scenery chewers Burgess Meredith and Jack Palance. On the downside, this is still very much in the classic Gothic style in a lot of ways. It wants to be more modern, and it can’t quite pull it off.

The film uses the conceit of a sideshow where Dr. Diablo (Burgess Meredith) has shown a quintet of guests some allegedly scary sights, including a very paltry version of an electric chair. He promises them some true thrills for an extra payment, though, and eventually curiosity gets the better of all five and they pay the extra money to be ushered behind a curtain into a back room. Here they encounter an effigy of Atropos, one of the Greek fates, in what appears to be a classic automated fortune teller machine. Diablo invites each person to take their turn at Atropos, who will show them a vision of their fate.

Did you guess that each of the fates of these people will be our short stories? Of course you did. That’s how anthology films often work, after all. We’re going to get little vignettes about each person that will be tangentially horror-related, including some that genuinely border on the ridiculous. Regardless, it’s all in good fun until we get to the end and things change as they tend to do for all anthologies. Our stories run as follows:

First up is Enoch, in which a rich wastrel desperate for his inheritance (Michael Bryant) kills his rich uncle (Maurice Denham) by withholding his medication. He discovers that the inheritance comes with some very significant strings in the form of a cat with unusual and terrible tastes.
Next, Terror Over Hollywood tells the tale of a starlet (Beverly Adams) who will do anything to get ahead in the movie industry when she finds out something terrible about many of the world’s biggest stars.
Third, Mr. Steinway concerns a pianist (John Standing) and his new love (Barbara Ewing), who are in a love triangle with the pianist’s piano, which has its own will and desire to exact revenge on any rivals.
Last, we have The Man Who Collected Poe, in which a Poe collector (Jack Palance) murders a collector with a much greater collection (Peter Cushing) only to make a discovery that he cannot explain.

The truth is that none of the stories are that scary. The opening story certainly wants to be a horror story but is difficult to take too seriously. The second is much more science fiction and while there’s some suspense, but nothing horrific. The third story is definitely a horror story, but it concerns a possessed piano and is honestly goofier than it is anything else. The final story is the best, but it also has the best cast. The epilogue, which concerns the use of Atropos’s shears in a different way, is fun, but not nearly as shocking as it wants to be.

Honestly, Torture Garden is misnamed. There’s no garden here and there’s no torture. It’s clearly a case where a prurient, racy title was developed long before the stories were considered and adapted for the screen. Seriously, save a title this good for something that actually has some torture in it, not a flesh-eating cat and an animated Steinway.

Why to watch Torture Garden: A fun scenery-chewing cast.

Why not to watch: It’s about as scary as a mild stomach flu.