1959 - HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM - a real piece of crap for a horror film

Horrors of the Black Museum is a horror film that is really a horror of a film to watch.  This is the first in a series of three the other two films being Circus of Horrors and Peeping Tom.  The plot has a crime reporter and the police investigating some gruesome murders being committed on what else, beautiful women.  The crime reporter just happens to have a secret room in his house which is a celebration of various types of murders using bizarre devices to kill people.  Well you can guess where this is going.  There is also a Jekyll/Hyde character and a couple of young lovers but in this film I can assure you they won't last long as a couple.

 

Let's get to the main lead in this film.  Michael Gough plays the crime reporter.  Gough had a long career in horror films.  He shows up in crap like Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, The Skull, Trog and the British remake of The Phantom of the Opera.  Towards the end of his career Tim Burton cast his as Alfred Pennyworth in  Batman.  Burton must have had a fondness for Gough he used him in four more films.

To single out a couple of supporting players in this film.  Sbirley Anne Field was one of those model turned actor individuals.  She was easy on the eyes but not really known for her thespian abilities.  Geoffrey Kean was a working actor who usually turned up in supporting roles playing a Scotland Yard Inspector or a military officer.  He ended up taking over the role of "M" in the James Bond films after Bernard Lee passed away.  He was always a reliable presence playing that "stiff upper lip" character the Brits were so fond of sticking in their films.

Horrors of the Black Museum is essentially a series of killings with some sex tease stuff throw in. The killings don't really have any reason to them and are just killings for the sake of titillating the viewer.  The film was commercially successful.  For the most these films usually make money.  Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the movie going public.

The film was photographed in some really lurid color and had of all things a hypnotism prologue which ran 13 minutes.  The prologue was eventually edited out of the released version of the film as the producers claimed it was actually hypnotizing people in the theater. 

Horrors of the Black Museum was written by Herman Cohen and Aben Kandel, the running time is 81 minutes but if you find a copy with the hypnosis prologue add an additional 13 minutes to the film.