In Bride of Frankenstein, Dr. Pretorius, played by the inimitable Ernest Thesiger, raises his glass and proposes a toast to Colin Clive’s Henry Frankenstein—“to a new world of Gods and Monsters.” I invite you to join me in exploring this world, focusing on horror films from the dawn of the Universal Monster movies in 1931 to the collapse of the studio system and the rise of the new Hollywood rebels in the late 1960’s. With this period as our focus, and occasional ventures beyond, we will explore this magnificent world of classic horror. So, I raise my glass to you and invite you to join me in the toast.

Starting in the late 50s, London’s Hammer Films became the undisputed champ of British horror. Then in the late 60s, a renegade pair of American producers gave them a run for their money with their company, Amicus Productions, headquartered out of Shepperton Studios. New Yorkers Milton Subostsky and Max J. Rosenberg partially emulated the Hammer model in their approach—low budgets, limited locations, and a focus on genre films. They even used much of Hammer’s stable of talent, including stars Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee as well as director Freddie Francis. Amicus set itself apart from Hammer by focusing on modern-set films rather than the largely gothic period pieces of the more famous studio. They also happened upon a structure that became their bread and butter between 1967 and 1974: the portmanteau or anthology film. No one made these kinds of films like Amicus, and the best of them all is 1971’s The House that Dripped Blood.

In another move similar to Hammer at the time, Amicus called on one of the great American horror writers for several of their films. Hammer had utilized “I Am Legend” author Richard Matheson to adapt Dennis Wheatley’s novel The Devil Rides Out (1968), one of their very best films. Amicus hired Robert Bloch, best known for writing the original novel Psycho, to write several films for them. Bloch started out as many of his generation had, writing science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories for the ubiquitous pulp magazines of the 40s and 50s. After the success of Alfred Hitchcock’s film version of his novel, he moved into writing for television, providing scripts for shows including Thriller, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and Star Trek. He wrote two films for William Castle: Straight Jacket (1964), which is very much a Psycho knock-off, and The Night Walker (1964), another psychological thriller.

Where Castle, who styled himself as Hitchcock on a budget, really only hired Bloch because of his association with Psycho, Milton Subotsky truly admired the writer’s work and adapted his story “The Skull of the Marquis de Sade” into the film The Skull (1965) for Amicus. Impressed by his television work, Subotsky hired Bloch to write The Psychopath and The Deadly Bees (both 1966) followed by the studio’s second portmanteau film, The Torture Garden (1967), based on Bloch’s own stories. The success of that film led to The House that Dripped Blood.

None of the stories in House are of particular depth or thematic complexity, but all of them are engaging, often with an O. Henry twist built to please fans of shows like The Twilight Zone and Thriller. The fact that Bloch cut his teeth writing for the pulps gave him a wealth of material to draw from for the three anthologies he wrote for Amicus. The stories for this film are diverse in tone and subject but held loosely together by a clever frame story, one that was something of a departure for Amicus. Both Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965) and The Torture Garden adhere more to the Dead of Night (1945), a film that Subotsky and Rosenberg greatly admired, formula for the frame story. In these films, and then again in later Amicus anthologies, a group of strangers gather to hear or tell a story in which each of them plays the main character.

The House that Dripped Blood follows Inspector Holloway (John Bennett) as he investigates the disappearance of horror film actor Paul Henderson. He discovers that Henderson was only the latest occupant of the old country house of the title to befall a strange misfortune. He learns of two of the previous renters from his Sergeant (John Malcolm) and the next two from the house’s realtor, Stoker, before exploring the house himself. This departure puts the focus onto “the bad place,” a classic tradition of horror. It’s not so much that the house is haunted, but it is somehow malignant and holds a strong influence over its occupants.

The first story, “Method for Murder,” stars Denholm Elliott, long before his turn as Indiana Jones’s university colleague Marcus Brody, as the writer’s favorite character to create—a writer. In this atmospheric segment, Elliott stars as Charles, a horror writer who has rented an old house along with his wife Alice (Joanna Dunham) in order to finish his latest novel. The lead character of his story is a terrifying and violent figure named Dominick. Dominick is so frightening and vivid that Charles fears to even continue writing but is compelled to complete his work. His fears deepen when it appears that Dominick has taken on flesh and poses a threat to him and his wife. This is Bloch as the psychological storyteller we best know him to be and is perhaps the darkest tale of the four.

Next, Inspector Holloway learns the story of a retired stockbroker, Phillip Grayson, played by Amicus and Hammer legend Peter Cushing. In what ultimately becomes a story of lost love and jealousy, Grayson discovers a waxworks museum containing a figure of Salome that looks remarkably like a long lost and pined for love of both he and his friend Neville Rogers (Joss Ackland). The two had been rivals for her hand years before and now both have become drawn to this wax statue made in her image. As with the story of Salome, a man’s head is perched on the platter she holds. The question becomes, who’s head will be on that platter?

The third story features the other great legend of Hammer horror Christopher Lee as John Reid, a widower and stern father to a young daughter, Jane (Chloe Franks). In a story with touches of “The Turn of the Screw” crossed with elements of Fritz Leiber’s The Conjure Wife (filmed as Burn Witch, Burn), Reid hires a tutor, Alice (Joanna Dunham) to teach and look after the child. The story unfolds slowly but before long it becomes clear that there is great animosity between Reid and his daughter, which eventually turns to fear. The reason for that fear turns out to be founded as Jane’s intentions and the truth about her mother come into the open.

The final story is the most iconic of the four and features the best-known image from the film of Ingrid Pitt looking stunning as a fanged vampire in a black satin dress and red-lined cape. The segment stars John Pertwee, fresh off his tenure as the third Doctor Who, as pompous horror actor Paul Henderson. He checks into the house with his mistress and costar Carla (Hammer great Ingrid Pitt) as a retreat while filming their latest picture—a micro-budget vampire film. Unhappy with the authenticity of the film, he stops into an occult shop where he purchases a cloak that turns him into a vampire when he wears it. It is the funniest of the four stories with Pertwee delightfully chewing the scenery as the self-styled expert on all things horror and supernatural.

The frame story wraps itself up by tying itself into this final story, a touch that rarely happens so completely in anthology films. We discover the final fates of Paul and Carla, and Holloway gets quite a surprise. We also discover the house’s true secret from its aptly named realtor Mr. Stoker. All these deviations on the anthology format: from the varying tones of the segments, to its unique framing device, to the way it intertwines the frame story cleanly into elements of the narrative, make The House That Dripped Blood a watershed moment in the evolution of the horror anthology. The film was also the most successful solely produced by Amicus (Rosenberg does not include Tales from the Crypt as it was more of a co-production). It would lead to a follow-up also written by Bloch, Asylum (1972), and three more anthologies after that: Tales from the Crypt (1972), The Vault of Horror (1973), and From Beyond the Grave (1974).

The visual style of The House that Dripped Blood also has a unique stamp in the Amicus portmanteau cycle. Director Peter Duffell puts his influences on full display throughout the film, beginning with his title card appearing alongside a skull perched atop a copy of Lotte E. Eisner’s The Haunted Screen, the preeminent work on German Expressionism. The use of deep shadows, multi-level staging using the house’s staircase, and extreme angles also tip his hand toward an affinity for Expressionism as well as Hitchcock. Oddly, the fact that the film is in color does not diminish these effects that are usually best represented in black and white. Even as it is visually dynamic, this is not a case of style over substance and certainly never distracts from the film’s entertainment value.

Amicus will likely forever stand in Hammer’s shadow, but in the company’s brief existence, it made a great impact on British horror. Maybe its greatest contribution was in reviving and perfecting the horror anthology on film, a sub-genre that had largely been relegated to television. The seven anthologies made by Amicus remain surprisingly strong despite the sheer number of stories that entails. The House That Dripped Blood also often stands in the shadow of the iconic Tales from the Crypt but deserves at least as much attention as Tales for its strong segments, clever wraparound, terrific performances, and stylish look. It stands in the pantheon of the great horror anthologies along with Dead of Night, Creepshow, and Trick ‘r Treat for forwarding this tricky balancing act of a subgenre and, like those movies, being a great deal of fun. These films are the craft of the short story collection in film form and The House That Dripped Blood remains one of the crowning examples.