Half a century before Amicus popularised the horror anthology here in Britain, and a good quarter of a century before the Ealing classic DEAD OF NIGHT, Austrian-born director Richard Oswald made UNCANNY TALES. It's a five-story anthology from Germany in which screen stars Conrad Veidt, Reinhold Schunzel and Anita Berber play Death, the Devil and a ghostly prostitute respectively. They emerge from old paintings in an antiques store overnight, kicking out the owner before reading five very different stories in which the stars also take the lead roles. In the first, Veidt begins an affair with an abused wife only to have her mysteriously vanish on him; the twist ending is a great one and later repeated in the British film SO LONG AT THE FAIR. In the second, Schunzel and Veidt play rival suitors. Schunzel loses a bet and bumps off Veidt, only to be haunted by the ghost of his creeping hand. I was reminded of the Christopher Lee segment in DR TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS here; the effects are far more primitive but the chilling effect the same. The third story is an effective reworking of Poe's THE BLACK CAT with all the right ingredients, while the fourth tells of the 'Suicide Club' and a fatal card game, with Veidt made up as Roderick Usher. There's another decent twist at the climax. The final story is a slight comedic effort in which a haunting is deliberately staged. It's a strong film, very atmospheric and with a good pace to sustain every story, episodic though they are.
Review of Eerie Tales
