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Amicus Productions
Amicus Productions was a British film production company, based at Shepperton Studios, England, active between 1962 and 1977. It was founded by American producers and screenwriters Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg.
Prior to establishing Amicus, its two producers collaborated on the successful horror film The City of the Dead (1960). Amicus's first two films were low-budget musicals for the teenage market, It's Trad, Dad! (1962) and Just for Fun (1963). Amicus is best remembered for making a series of portmanteau horror anthologies, inspired by the Ealing Studios film Dead of Night (1945). They also made some straight thriller films, often based on a gimmick.
Amicus's horror and thriller films are sometimes mistaken for the output of the better-known Hammer Film Productions, due to the two companies' similar visual style and use of some of the same actors, including Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Unlike the period gothic Hammer films, Amicus productions were usually set in the present day.
Although not an Amicus Productions film, a film version of Harold Pinter's play The Birthday Party (1968), directed by William Friedkin, was produced by the team of Subotsky and Rosenberg for Palomar Pictures International.
Amicus released seven portmanteau films; Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965), Torture Garden (1967), The House That Dripped Blood (1971), Tales from the Crypt (1972), Asylum (1972), Vault of Horror (1973) and From Beyond the Grave (1974). These films typically feature four or sometimes five short horror stories, linked by an overarching plot featuring a narrator and those listening to his story.
The casts of these films are invariably composed of name actors, each of whom play a main part in one of the stories—a small proportion of the film as a whole. Along with genre stars like Cushing, Lee and Herbert Lom, Amicus also drew its actors from the classical British stage (Patrick Magee, Margaret Leighton and Ralph Richardson), rising younger actors (Donald Sutherland, Robert Powell and Tom Baker), or former stars in decline (Richard Greene, Robert Hutton, and Terry-Thomas). Some, such as Joan Collins, were in their mid-career doldrums when they worked with Amicus, while others such as Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker (later the third and fourth incarnations of the Doctor in the science-fiction series, Doctor Who) were at the height of their careers.
Torture Garden, The House That Dripped Blood and Asylum were written by Robert Bloch, based upon his own stories. An exception was the "Waxworks" segment of The House That Dripped Blood, which was scripted (uncredited) by Russ Jones, based on Bloch's story. Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror were based on stories from EC horror comics from the 1950s.
Amicus also produced some conventional chillers, such as The Skull (1965), The Psychopath (1966), Scream and Scream Again (1970), I, Monster (1971), And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973), and The Beast Must Die (1974). The Skull was also based on a Bloch story (though scripted by Milton Subotsky). Bloch was also the screenwriter of The Psychopath (1966), and wrote the original adaptation of The Deadly Bees (based upon H. F. Heard's A Taste for Honey).
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Amicus Productions
Amicus Productions was a British film production company, based at Shepperton Studios, England, active between 1962 and 1977. It was founded by American producers and screenwriters Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg.
Prior to establishing Amicus, its two producers collaborated on the successful horror film The City of the Dead (1960). Amicus's first two films were low-budget musicals for the teenage market, It's Trad, Dad! (1962) and Just for Fun (1963). Amicus is best remembered for making a series of portmanteau horror anthologies, inspired by the Ealing Studios film Dead of Night (1945). They also made some straight thriller films, often based on a gimmick.
Amicus's horror and thriller films are sometimes mistaken for the output of the better-known Hammer Film Productions, due to the two companies' similar visual style and use of some of the same actors, including Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Unlike the period gothic Hammer films, Amicus productions were usually set in the present day.
Although not an Amicus Productions film, a film version of Harold Pinter's play The Birthday Party (1968), directed by William Friedkin, was produced by the team of Subotsky and Rosenberg for Palomar Pictures International.
Amicus released seven portmanteau films; Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965), Torture Garden (1967), The House That Dripped Blood (1971), Tales from the Crypt (1972), Asylum (1972), Vault of Horror (1973) and From Beyond the Grave (1974). These films typically feature four or sometimes five short horror stories, linked by an overarching plot featuring a narrator and those listening to his story.
The casts of these films are invariably composed of name actors, each of whom play a main part in one of the stories—a small proportion of the film as a whole. Along with genre stars like Cushing, Lee and Herbert Lom, Amicus also drew its actors from the classical British stage (Patrick Magee, Margaret Leighton and Ralph Richardson), rising younger actors (Donald Sutherland, Robert Powell and Tom Baker), or former stars in decline (Richard Greene, Robert Hutton, and Terry-Thomas). Some, such as Joan Collins, were in their mid-career doldrums when they worked with Amicus, while others such as Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker (later the third and fourth incarnations of the Doctor in the science-fiction series, Doctor Who) were at the height of their careers.
Torture Garden, The House That Dripped Blood and Asylum were written by Robert Bloch, based upon his own stories. An exception was the "Waxworks" segment of The House That Dripped Blood, which was scripted (uncredited) by Russ Jones, based on Bloch's story. Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror were based on stories from EC horror comics from the 1950s.
Amicus also produced some conventional chillers, such as The Skull (1965), The Psychopath (1966), Scream and Scream Again (1970), I, Monster (1971), And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973), and The Beast Must Die (1974). The Skull was also based on a Bloch story (though scripted by Milton Subotsky). Bloch was also the screenwriter of The Psychopath (1966), and wrote the original adaptation of The Deadly Bees (based upon H. F. Heard's A Taste for Honey).