- Five strangers get lost in a crypt and, after meeting the mysterious Crypt Keeper, receive visions of how they will die.
- Five people come upon a catacomb and take the tour. After they get lost, they find they're trapped, and they see The Crypt Keeper (Sir Ralph Richardson). He asks them each to see why they're there: (1) And All Through the House: Christmas Eve, Joanne Clayton (Dame Joan Collins) kills her husband (Martin Boddey) expecting to receive his insurance. She hears on the wireless that the police are seeking an escaped homicidal maniac posing as Santa. When the man knocks on her door, she can't phone the Police, and she has a Christmas surprise. (2) Reflection of Death: Carl Maitland (Ian Hendry) leaves his wife (Susan Denny) and children for his mistress, but something happens during his journey. (3) Poetic Justice: the widowed janitor, Arthur Edward Grimsdyke (Peter Cushing) is a good man who spends his leisure time with the children from the neighborhood. His heartless neighbor doesn't like him and destroys his life, leading Grimsdyke to commit suicide on Valentine's Day. A year later, Grimsdyke rises from his tomb seeking revenge. (4) Wish You Were Here: dirty businessman Ralph Jason (Richard Greene) is bankrupt, and his lawyer and friend, Charles Gregory (Roy Dotrice), tells him he must sell his real estate. When he tells his wife Enid (Barbara Murray), she recalls they have a statue with a legend; it'll grant three wishes to the owner. She makes the wishes, and leads Ralph to eternal damnation. (5) Blind Alleys: cruel Major Rogers (Nigel Patrick) comes to the Elmridge home for the blind, with his dog, to be the new director. He tortures the internees until the day they get revenge. Soon, the internees discover they're at the gate of Hell.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Five people are trapped in a crypt and are shown their futures by the Crypt Keeper. They are given the option of avoiding their fates - by avoiding living out the rest of their lives. First they must experience what they will do in their futures - or is it their pasts?—<76277.216@compuserve.com>
- Five strangers go with a tourist group to view old catacombs. Separated from the main group, they find themselves in a room with the mysterious Crypt Keeper (Ralph Richardson), who details how each of the strangers will die.
"...And All Through the House"
After Joanne Clayton (Joan Collins) kills her husband on Christmas Eve, she prepares to hide his body but hears a radio announcement stating that a homicidal maniac (Oliver MacGreevy) is on the loose. She sees the killer (who is dressed in a Santa Claus costume) outside her house but cannot call the police without exposing her own crimes. Joanne manages to lock up the front and back doors as well as lock all of the first floor windows. She then hides her husband's body in the cellar and sets it up to make it look like he fell down the stairs in an accident. Believing the maniac to be Santa, Joanne's young daughter Carol (Chloe Franks) unknowingly lets him into the house, and he starts to strangle Joanne to death....
"Reflection of Death"
Carl Maitland (Ian Hendry) abandons his family one evening to be with Susan Blake (Angela Grant), his secret mistress. After they drive off together, they are involved in a car accident. He wakes up in the wrecked car and attempts to hitchhike home, but no one will stop for him. Arriving at his house, he sees his wife (Susan Denny) with another man. He knocks on the door, but she screams and slams the door. He then goes to see Susan to find out that she is blind from the accident. She refuses to believe that it's Carl and says that Carl died two years ago from the crash. Looking in a reflective tabletop he sees he has the face of a corpse. Carl then wakes up and finds out that it was a dream but the moment he does, the crash occurs as it did before...
"Poetic Justice"
Edward Elliott (David Markham) and his son James (Robin Phillips) are a snobbish pair who resent their neighbor, garbage man Arthur Grimsdyke (Peter Cushing) who owns a number of animals and entertains children in his house. To get rid of what they see as a blight on the neighborhood, they push Grimsdyke into a frenzy by conducting a smear campaign against him, first resulting in the removal of his beloved dogs (while one of them came back to him), getting him fired from his job, and later exploiting parents' paranoiac fears about child molestation. On Valentine's Day, James sends Grimsdyke a number of poison-pen Valentines, supposedly from the neighbors, driving the old man to suicide. One year later, Grimsdyke comes back from the dead and takes revenge on James by breaking into his house and attacking him. The following morning, Edward finds his son dead with a note that says he was bad and that he had no--- the word "heart" represented by James' heart, torn from his body.
"Wish You Were Here"
A variation on W. W. Jacobs' famed short story "The Monkey's Paw." Ruthless businessman Ralph Jason (Richard Greene) is close to financial ruin. His wife Enid (Barbara Murray) discovers a Chinese figurine that says it will grant three wishes to whoever possesses it; Enid decides to wish for a fortune. Ralph is called to his lawyer's office and gets killed in a car accident on the way. The lawyer then advising Enid she will inherit a fortune from her deceased husband's life insurance plan. She uses her second wish to bring him back to the way he was just before the accident but learns that his death was due to a heart attack (caused by fright when he sees the figure of 'death' following him on a motorcycle). As she uses her final wish to bring him back alive and living forever, she discovers that he was embalmed, she tries to kill him to end his pain but because she wished him to live forever, every bit of him is alive and well, she has now trapped him in eternal pain.
"Blind Alleys"
Major William Rogers (Nigel Patrick), the new director of a home for the blind making up of mostly retired middle aged men, makes drastic financial cuts, reducing heat and rationing food for the residents, while he lives in luxury with Shane, his Belgian Malinois. When he ignores complaints and a man dies due to the cold, the blind residents, led by the stone-faced George Carter (Patrick Magee), exact an equally cruel revenge by locking the Major up in a room in the basement as well as subduing the staff of the facility. Carter and his men then begin constructing in the basement a maze of narrow corridors lined with razor blades. They also lock up and starve the Major's dog. They place the Major in the maze's center, release the dog and turn off the basement lights....
After completing the final tale, the Crypt Keeper reveals that he was not warning them of what would happen, but telling them what had happened; they have all died, and it is too late for repentance. Clues to this twist can be spotted throughout the film, including Joan Collins' character wearing the brooch her husband had given her for Christmas just before she killed him. The door to Hell opens, and the visitors all enter. "And now ... who is next?" asks the Crypt Keeper, turning to face the camera. "Perhaps you?"
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