TORTURE GARDEN

UK, 1967, 95 minutes, Colour.
Burgess Meredith, Jack Palance, Barbara Ewing, Peter Cushing, Michael Bryant. Beverley Adams. Maurice Denham, John Standing.
Directed by Freddie Francis.

Torture Garden is a horror film and quite an entertaining one, using a fortune telling technique to narrate stories about different characters. Bizarre, with some cliches as well as some scares, it also is designed as an entertaining thought provoker or examination of conscience. This is a highly successful commercial device; it gets people not only interested but involved and frightened as they imagine what would happen to them if they went into a situation where the consequences of their worst fault became a living reality. This is the frightening torture of a carnival side-show, The Torture Garden, run by what seems to be the devil himself in the human form of Burgess Meredith.

The four stories told here are uneven but sufficiently varied and odd to hold the attention of all types of audience, ordinary and sophisticated. In fact, a film like Torture Garden might be a good introduction to groups who are backward at discussion to talking about films and the points they raise. Even admitting some of the ideas in public is a bit like Torture Garden.

1. Did you think this was just another horror film? Was it scary? Did it differ from Frankenstein-type films?

2. Is the story possible? Were the characters in some way hypnotised by the statue of fate so that they imagined the whole story?

3. Who was Diavolo? Was he merely a sideshow manager?

4. Why could you say the film is an examination of conscience?

5. The four people paid a lot of money in a desire to see something horrible? Did they get their money's worth? Why would a person's deepest sin be the most horrifying thing?

6. What were the deep faults of the four characters whose stories are shown? Name them and explain how the story illustrated them. (Greed, ambition, domination, possession.)