The Vault of Horror

Five strangers board a down-going elevator in a modern London office block. The lift descends to a sub-basement destination that appears to be unreachable, and there is no obvious way to call it back. The doors remain closed, trapping them inside as a sense of unease settles over the group.

The lift doors open to a large, elaborately furnished room that resembles a gentlemen’s club. There are no visible exits and the artificial world seems to seal them in. The five men gather inside, trying to understand how they got here and what may come next.

With no escape in sight, they settle in with drinks and begin sharing their recurring nightmares. The stories hint at guilt, fear, and consequences that could replay in their locked-in environment. The mood becomes increasingly tense as each tale unfolds.

In Harold Rogers’ story, he hires Clive to track his sister Donna to a strange town. The pursuit ends in violence as Harold kills Clive and then Donna to secure the family inheritance. The dream hints at a vampire-haunted town, foreshadowing the fate awaiting them.

Donna proves to be not truly dead, and the town is revealed as a vampire enclave. Harold’s bid to claim the inheritance culminates with him becoming the night’s meal, drained by the undead feast. The brutal twist underscores the dream’s deadly consequences.

Arthur Critchit, obsessive about neatness, quarrels with his wife Eleanor over mess and control. In a fit of rage, she kills him with a hammer blow to the head. She dismembers the body and stores the organs in neatly labeled jars, turning crime into cold, clinical art.

Sebastian and his wife Inez travel in search of new tricks in India and encounter a girl who charms a rope from a flute. They murder her to steal the enchanted rope, and Sebastian discovers the rope’s magic as it rises when he holds it. Inez tests the rope’s limits, she climbs it and disappears, leaving a patch of blood on the ceiling, while the rope coils around Sebastian’s neck; the victim reappears alive in the bazaar.

Maitland is buried alive as part of an insurance scam, with Alex double-crossing him. Two trainee doctors bribe a gravedigger to dig up a corpse to aid their studies, triggering a dangerous sequence of events. When Maitland’s coffin is opened, he lunges out, Tom and Jerry flee into the road as Alex’s car crashes and explodes; the gravedigger ends Maitland’s life, and the deal collapses amid ironic apologies for the damage to the head.

Moore, a once-poor Haitian painter, learns his works were bought and praised by dealers who claimed they were worthless. A voodoo priest grants him power to damage those who wronged him, and Moore paints revenge on three men who cheated him. In London he completes portraits of his cheaters and leaves his own portrait exposed, only to have a can of paint thinner spill on it from above, leading to his gruesome death as a truck approaches.

The five awaken and step out into a graveyard, where four of them vanish one by one. Sebastian remains behind and explains that they are damned souls doomed to tell the stories of their evil deeds for all eternity. He then returns to the room, which has become a mausoleum, walks toward the casket and disappears as the door slams shut.