Horrors of the Black Museum (1959)

Michael Gough gives a gloriously overwrought performance in this notorious 1959 horror feature. A box-office triumph shot at Merton Park studios in the relatively new CinemaScope format, Horrors of the Black Museum was the first in what has been dubbed Anglo-Amalgamated's 'Sadian trilogy' (with Circus of Horrors and Peeping Tom), in which the keynote is sensationalistic, sexually charged violence. Horrors of the Black Museum is featured here in a brand-new transfer from original film elements in its as-exhibited theatrical aspect ratio.

While a series of grisly, macabre and seemingly motiveless murders leaves Scotland Yard baffled, leading crime writer and journalist Edward Bancroft is following events with particular interest. When it is discovered that a young man, Rick, is being motivated to commit the murders under hypnosis, it also becomes clear that his mystery mentor is delighting in the Yard's embarrassment.