Flicks of Shame: what's a nice actor like you doing in a movie like this?

Dr Terror’s House of Horrors (1965)

It’s not often you see Roy Castle squeezed in between the likes of Jim Carrey and Don Cheadle (unless you suffer from particularly vivid dreams), but he earns a mention here mainly for the sheer oddity value of seeing a cheery British kids TV fave in a devilishly camp horror anthology alongside the likes of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.

Made during the heyday of the British horror industry, when small studios like Hammer, Tigon and Amicus were churning out dozens of weird and wonderful X-rated movies, the concept is a charmingly simple one. Five men share a train carriage with the mysterious Dr Schreck (Cushing), who tells their fortune using tarot cards – the deck of which is tenuously described as his “house of horrors”. Each man’s story then plays out before the traditional twist in the tale ties it all together.

Roy Castle’s appearance plays to his strengths, as anyone who tapped a toe to his trumpet on Record Breakers can attest. No, he’s not stalked by a zombie Norris McWhirter, he plays a jazz musician – albeit one drawn into the shady world of voodoo, or at least the popularised Sixties British cinema version of voodoo.

Roy plays jazz trumpeter Biff Bailey, and he’s understandably overjoyed when his agent books him and his band into a club in Haiti. While there he meets Sammy Coin (Kenny Lynch), a fellow jazzman who warns Biff against poking his nose into the island’s voodoo religion. Biff ignores him and, after spying on a voodoo ritual (which mostly involves topless black people with crude face paint jigging aimlessly around a fire) he swipes their rhythm and works it into a new number for his band giving nary a thought to the royalty payments, let alone the mortal implications, of his pre-download musical thievery.

Back in London, Biff and his band premiere their voodoo music for club patrons, but a freakish storm blows the doors open and sends panicked revellers fleeing into the street. Biff still isn’t deterred – proving that dedication really is what you need – and takes the sheet music home with him to smooth out the musical kinks. As he journeys home, his paranoia grows and upon his eventual arrival at his bachelor pad (zebra print sofas – classy!) the windows and doors slam shut, the lights go out and a spooky black man in a loin cloth mysteriously appears and reaches out to grab him. Biff faints, convinced he’s about to be strangled, but the voodoo vision simply takes the sheet music and wanders off, presumably looking for a movie that’s a little less racist.

The other stories in the anthology have similar non-committal endings, and at the film’s climax the five men are left on an eerie abandoned station, where a newspaper headline informs them that…wait for it…the train crashed and they’re all dead. Peter Cushing then turns into a plastic skeleton for good measure.

Biff Bailey’s jazz apocalypse forms a peculiar and outdated little section of this otherwise fun movie, in which Big Black Men are inherently scary or imbued with savage magic powers. Castle comes across rather strangely as well. His acting skills were hardly top notch at the best of times, but his boyish enthusiasm – so infectious when discussing the world record for most baked beans eaten with a cocktail stick – becomes rather creepy when he’s drooling at the prospect of scantily-clad native girls cavorting in the moonlight.

Honourable mention: This marked Roy Castle’s second movie with Peter Cushing, as 1965 also saw him play the unwilling assistant to Cushing’s timelord in the big screen adventure, Doctor Who and the Daleks. They would team up again ten years later in 1975 for Legend of the Werewolf, also by Dr. Terror director Freddie Francis. Francis went on to direct Cushing again in The Night of the Ghoul (see: John Hurt).

Need to know: The part of Biff Bailey was actually written for Acker Bilk, but Castle stepped in when the legendary hornblower dropped out following a heart attack. Another unlikely face in the cast is radio DJ, Alan “Fluff” Freeman, who is menaced and murdered by mutant vines in one of the film’s other segments.

Availability: Dr Terror’s House of Horrors can be picked up on UK DVD as part of the rather excellent Amicus Collection, which comes in a nifty coffin-shaped box and features some cracking vintage Brit horror.

		Dr Terror’s House of Horrors (1965) It’s not often you see Roy Castle squeezed in between the likes of Jim Carrey and Don Cheadle (unless you suffer from particularly vivid dreams), but he earns a mention here mainly for the sheer oddity value of seeing a cheery British kids TV fave in a devilishly camp horror anthology alongside the likes of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Made during the heyday of the British horror industry, when small studios like Hammer, Tigon and Amicus were churning out dozens of weird and wonderful X-rated movies, the concept is a charmingly simple one. Five men share a train carriage with the mysterious Dr Schreck (Cushing), who tells their fortune using tarot cards – the deck of which is tenuously described as his “house of horrors”. Each man’s story then plays out before the traditional twist in the tale ties it all together. Roy Castle’s appearance plays to his strengths, as anyone who tapped a toe to his trumpet on Record Breakers can attest. No, he’s not stalked by a zombie Norris McWhirter, he plays a jazz musician – albeit one drawn into the shady world of voodoo, or at least the popularised Sixties British cinema version of voodoo. Roy plays jazz trumpeter Biff Bailey, and he’s understandably overjoyed when his agent books him and his band into a club in Haiti. While there he meets Sammy Coin (Kenny Lynch), a fellow jazzman who warns Biff against poking his nose into the island’s voodoo religion. Biff ignores him and, after spying on a voodoo ritual (which mostly involves topless black people with crude face paint jigging aimlessly around a fire) he swipes their rhythm and works it into a new number for his band giving nary a thought to the royalty payments, let alone the mortal implications, of his pre-download musical thievery. Back in London, Biff and his band premiere their voodoo music for club patrons, but a freakish storm blows the doors open and sends panicked revellers fleeing into the street. Biff still isn’t deterred – proving that dedication really is what you need – and takes the sheet music home with him to smooth out the musical kinks. As he journeys home, his paranoia grows and upon his eventual arrival at his bachelor pad (zebra print sofas – classy!) the windows and doors slam shut, the lights go out and a spooky black man in a loin cloth mysteriously appears and reaches out to grab him. Biff faints, convinced he’s about to be strangled, but the voodoo vision simply takes the sheet music and wanders off, presumably looking for a movie that’s a little less racist. The other stories in the anthology have similar non-committal endings, and at the film’s climax the five men are left on an eerie abandoned station, where a newspaper headline informs them that…wait for it…the train crashed and they’re all dead. Peter Cushing then turns into a plastic skeleton for good measure. Biff Bailey’s jazz apocalypse forms a peculiar and outdated little section of this otherwise fun movie, in which Big Black Men are inherently scary or imbued with savage magic powers. Castle comes across rather strangely as well. His acting skills were hardly top notch at the best of times, but his boyish enthusiasm – so infectious when discussing the world record for most baked beans eaten with a cocktail stick – becomes rather creepy when he’s drooling at the prospect of scantily-clad native girls cavorting in the moonlight. Honourable mention: This marked Roy Castle’s second movie with Peter Cushing, as 1965 also saw him play the unwilling assistant to Cushing’s timelord in the big screen adventure, Doctor Who and the Daleks. They would team up again ten years later in 1975 for Legend of the Werewolf, also by Dr. Terror director Freddie Francis. Francis went on to direct Cushing again in The Night of the Ghoul (see: John Hurt). Need to know: The part of Biff Bailey was actually written for Acker Bilk, but Castle stepped in when the legendary hornblower dropped out following a heart attack. Another unlikely face in the cast is radio DJ, Alan “Fluff” Freeman, who is menaced and murdered by mutant vines in one of the film’s other segments. Availability: Dr Terror’s House of Horrors can be picked up on UK DVD as part of the rather excellent Amicus Collection, which comes in a nifty coffin-shaped box and features some cracking vintage Brit horror.
Text © 2008 Dan Whitehead. No cut and paste, y'hear? All images remain the property of the offending studios and their reproduction is covered by Fair Use law.