“You’ll shake, you’ll shiver, but it’s all good fun. The greatest thrill you have ever had in your life!”

"It's more than an entertainment, it's a panacea. You'll shake, you'll shiver, but it's all good fun. The greatest thrill you have ever had in your life!"

So speaks Diablo (Burgess Meredith) at the beginning of Torture Garden. Shame he's not talking about the film itself, really.

"Yes, my friends… there is no end to man's inhumanity to man…" he continues, unwittingly summing up the pain which watching this film puts the viewer through.

Yes, my friends, welcome to Torture Garden - adequately summed up as "the not very good Amicus anthology with that bloke out of Rocky in it". Unfortunately, given the chance to do a Brit Horror film, Mr Meredith decides to ham it up terribly. This wouldn't be too bad if the stories were okay, but only one has any substance, and the rest are just dreary. When you add a distinct lack of blood, very little in the way of actual horror and a flimsy and illogical linking theme, you've got just an average film.

At the back of his funfair exhibit, Diablo keeps Atrobus, The Goddess Of Destiny (or a woman sitting very still, clutching a ball of wool and a big pair of scissors), who shows "the primordial monstrosities that lurk in the mind, to forewarn people" and help them "escape the monstrous act".

Colin knows that his ill old Uncle Roger is rich, and as he can't be bothered to work for a living, Colin is determined to get hold of the money. It's not long before he's bumped uncle off and started turning the house upside-down looking for the cash, eventually discovering a hidden cellar with what looks like a freshly-dug grave in it.

On opening the grave he finds a coffin (in a grave?) containing a headless corpse (dead) and a cat (very alive). "Yes… I can hear you…" he tells the cat, through the power of echoey voiceovers. "Your name is Balthazar… you have come to stay with me… to serve me… as you served my uncle. You will reward me as you rewarded him. In return for this there are things I must do for you. My uncle was ungrateful… he buried you away in darkness… but now you are free… and hungry… hungry…"

After a cat/tramp/pitchfork combo, it's dubloons for everyone, but not for long.

The second segment is worse than the first (if that's possible), but it is livened up by a great deal of hilariously bad "hip" dialogue.

The story concerns aspiring actress Carla, who shows just how keen she is to get to the top by burning a hole in her best friend's dress so she can take her place on a dinner date. It's not long before she's discovered a dodgy secret about Hollywood stars.

"You must live to feed only on the applause and the fame," she is told. For some of us, it is enough."

We're on a downward spiral as we next hit a tale about a killer piano. Yes, you heard right. A killer piano. I'll repeat it for you. A piano that moves around by itself. Like on the Les Dawson Show. Only not as scary.

Occasionally, Euterpe (the piano) delivers a shot for the viewer by letting out an enormous CLANGGGG!! (usually just after someone's said something like "For the first time in years I feel happy!"), but at the end of the day, anyone who tries to sell a story about a piano that pushes people out of windows whilst playing the funeral march should be pushed out of a window themselves.

For those who have the strength of character to make it through the killer cats, killer robots and killer pianos on show thus far, the final story is a stormer. Jack Palance plays against type as a real nerd, salivating at the thought of unpublished manuscripts by a certain Edgar Allen Poe. And there's more to be found as fellow collector Peter Cushing shows him the prize exhibit in his little museum… Yes, it’s Edgar Allen Poe himself.

Once again there's not much substance to the tale, but on this occasion the performances save it. Even the dusty, bored-looking Poe is great, and the final conflagration is a real tour de force. "Is that not a good ending for the last story of Edgar Allen Poe?"

Yes, probably.

So we're left with a (sort of) twist ending, as Diablo gives them "a good show for their money" (hardly…) and everyone leaves, a bit narked. Torture Garden is not great. What makes it okay is because it's an anthology, none of the stories really outstay their welcome. And you can have a bit of fun predicting when Atrobus is going to make her comedy entrance into each tale.