Taking its cue from the popular portmanteau style of 'Dead of Night' some 20 years previously, this was the first of Amicus' successful series of horror story compendiums. The five segments - featuring werewolves, vampires, voodoo, killer vines and a re-working of 'The Beast with Five Fingers' - are of varying quality, but there's no doubting the authentic creepiness of the opening and closing sequences. These are dominated by Peter Cushing's genuinely sinister Dr Sandor Schreck, a dealer of death through his set of Tarot cards. And there are some surprising faces in the cast: Christopher Lee you expect to see (and he's impressive as an overbearing art critic), but Roy Castle, Kenny Lynch and - gulp - Alan Freeman? Max Adrian has fun as a vampire and, in the same episode, a youthful Donald Sutherland makes one of his first film appearances.

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