Torture Garden
Directed by	Freddie Francis
Produced by	Max Rosenberg, Milton Subotsky
Written by	Robert Bloch
Starring	Jack Palance Burgess Meredith Beverly Adams Peter Cushing
Music by	Don Banks, James Bernard
Cinematography	Norman Warwick
Language	English

Torture Garden is a 1967 horror film made in the UK by Amicus Productions. It was directed by Freddie Francis and scripted by Robert Bloch. It stars Burgess Meredith, Jack Palance, Michael Ripper, Beverly Adams, Peter Cushing, Maurice Denham, Ursula Howells, Michael Bryant and Barbara Ewing. The score was a collaboration between Hammer horror regulars James Bernard and Don Banks.

It is one of producer Milton Subotsky's trademark "portmanteau" films, an omnibus of short stories linked by a single narrative.

[edit] Plot

Five people visit a fairground sideshow run by the sinister Dr. Diabolo (Meredith). Having shown them a handful of haunted-house-style attractions, he promises them a genuinely scary experience if they will pay extra. Their curiosity gets the better of them, and the small crowd follows him behind a curtain, where they each view their fate through the shears of the female deity Atropos (Clytie Jessop).

In "Enoch", a greedy playboy (Bryant) takes advantage of his dying uncle (Denham), and falls under the spell of a man-eating cat. In "Terror Over Hollywood", a Hollywood starlet (Adams) discovers her co-stars are androids. In "Mr. Steinway", a possessed grand piano by the name of Euterpe becomes jealous of its owner's new lover (Ewing) and takes revenge. And in "The Man Who Collected Poe", a Poe collector (Palance) murders another collector (Cushing) over a collectable he refuses to show him, only to find his fate with Edgar Allan Poe himself.

[edit] Cast

• Jack Palance as Ronald Wyatt
• Burgess Meredith as Dr. Diabolo
• Beverly Adams as Carla Hayes
• Peter Cushing as Lancelot Canning
• Michael Bryant as Colin Williams
• John Standing as Leo
• John Phillips as Storm
• Michael Ripper as Gordon Roberts
• Bernard Kay as Dr. Heim
• Maurice Denham as Uncle Roger
• Ursula Howells as Miss Chambers
• David Bauer as Charles
• Niall MacGinnis as Doctor

[edit] External links

• Torture Garden at the Internet Movie Database
• Film Review