Tales from the Crypt

Amicus made a career out of horror anthologies, and this adaptation of the EC Comics line is the one to see. Five strangers lost in the catacombs meet a robed Crypt Keeper who shows each of them how they are going to die, and the segments range from a monkey's-paw wish to Peter Cushing quietly breaking your heart as a widower hounded by his neighbours. The famous one is Joan Collins trapped in her house on Christmas Eve with a murderer in a Santa suit outside, filmed before the slasher existed to give it a name. Freddie Francis directs it all with a straight face and a lurid palette, and the poetic-justice endings land every time.