Dr. Henry Jekyll experiments with scientific means of revealing the hidden, dark side of man and releases a murderer from within himself. The first screen adaption of the Robert Louis Stevenson book. Starring John Barrymore, Martha Mansfield, and Brandon Hurst. Drew Barrymore is not in this movie.
A mad scientist performs experiments on “the criminal mind” on captured criminals on board his private ship. This curious movie is taken from a story by Jack London “A Thousand Deaths.” George Wallace Sayre. Starring Lyle Talbot, Irving Pichel, and Julie Bishop.
After an enigmatic, self-described pathologist rents the attic room of a Victorian house, his landlady begins to suspect her lodger is Jack the Ripper. London, 1888: on the night of the third Jack the Ripper killing, soft-spoken Mr. Slade, a research pathologist, takes lodgings with the Harleys, including a gloomy attic room for “experiments.” Mrs. Harley finds Slade odd and increasingly suspects the worst; her niece Lily (star of a decidedly Parisian stage revue) finds him interesting and increasingly attractive. Is Lily in danger, or are her aunt’s suspicions merely a red herring? Starring Jack Palance, Constance Smith, and Byron Palmer.
Francis, a young man, recalls in his memory the horrible experiences he and his fiancée Jane recently went through. It is the annual fair in Holstenwall. Francis and his friend Alan visit The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, an exhibit where the mysterious doctor shows the somnambulist Cesare, and awakens him for some moments from his death-like sleep. When Alan asks Cesare about his future, Cesare answers that he will die before dawn. The next morning Alan is found dead. Francis suspects Cesare of being the murderer, and starts spying on him and Dr. Caligari. The following night Cesare is going to stab Jane in her bed, but softens when he sees the beautiful woman, and instead of committing another murder, he abducts her. Jane’s father awakens because of the noise, and he and some servants follow the fleeing Cesare. When Cesare cannot outrun his pursuers anymore, he gently places Jane down on the ground, and runs away. Francis and the police investigate the caravan of Dr. Caligari, but the doctor succeeds in slipping away. Francis pursues the fleeing Dr. Caligari, and sees him disappear into a madhouse. Francis enters the madhouse, where he is sure he will find the truth behind all these mysterious events. Stars Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, and Friedrich Feher. A classic German silent horror film.
An American reporter in Japan is sent to interview an eccentric Japanese scientist working on bizarre experiments in his mountain laboratory. When the doctor realizes that the hapless correspondent is the perfect subject for his next experiment, he drugs the unfortunate man and injects him with a serum that gradually transforms him into a hideous, two-headed monster. Starring Peter Dyneley, Jane Hylton, and Tetsu Nakamura. That weird eye on the shoulder is pretty creepy!
A scientist invents a serum that keeps a dog’s head alive after its body dies. When the scientist dies of a heart attack, his crazed assistant cuts off his head and, using the serum, keeps the doctor’s head alive and forces it to help him on an experiment to give his hunchbacked nurse assistant a new body. Starring Horst Frank, Michel Simon, Karin Kernke, and Helmut Schmid. A bizarre German film giving a hint of Nazi mad science antics. I guess he was a Jerry Garcia fan.
A stripper is horribly disfigured in a car accident. A brilliant scientist develops a treatment that restores her beauty and falls in love with her. To preserve her appearance the doctor must give her additional treatments using glands taken from murdered women. His unexplained ability to turn into a hideous monster helps with this problem but does nothing to win her love. The doctor’s woes multiply as the police and the girl’s boyfriend begin to close in on him. Starring Alberto Lupo, Susanne Loret, and Sergio Fantoni. An Italian mad scientist movie with a poor title translation, because there are no vampires in this movie—just mad scientists!
A mad Russian doctor is determined to take revenge on the family he believes is responsible for his daughter’s death. A remake of an earlier silent serial. Starring Warner Oland, June Collyer, and Lloyd Hughes. The lights go out more than once. The phone is dead. A claw-like hand jumps out of the curtain to grab the girl. That kind of movie. An early talkie that is a lot of fun.
A wealthy old recluse wills her fortune and exceedingly-gloomy house to a pair of newlyweds, Robert and Eleanor Lindsay. Years before, Dr. Jackson had been in love with Eleanor’s father, who was younger than her and did not return her love. N’Gina, an ape-man, Dr. Jackson brought back from Africa drinks a potion she had concocted in her laboratory, for a specific reason, but N’Gina turns on her and kills her, which is not what she had planned. Then he murders her attorney, Bradshaw, who is hunting for $20,000 in gold she had hidden in her gloomy house. Her brother, Zeno, an ex-convict, finds the gold but N’Gina isn’t bothered by the bullets Zeno fires at him and kills him also. Detective Nelson then goes looking for it. Starring Zack Williams, Laura Bowman, and Alfred Grant. Can people get turned into Bigfoot?
Houdini stars in this exciting silent movie! An inventor travels to the South Seas, where there is buried treasure belonging to a girl. The girl’s father is being held captive by cannibals until she returns a pearl that belongs to one of their idols. Starring Harry Houdini, Jack Brammall, and Lila Lee. Houdini at his best!
The body of a man, Howard Hillary, frozen for a hundred years, is found in the Arctic ice. Thawed out and awakened, Hillary insists that a young woman, Felice, is his fiancée from a century before. Hillary is interned in a mental institution but escapes and realizes the truth of where he is and that Felice is actually the descendant of his own Felice from long ago. Hillary joins her in searching for her father, who has been abducted by someone known to both. Starring Harry Houdini, Arthur Maude, and Albert Tavernier.
A scientist experimenting with suspended animation decides to use himself as a test subject. Before he is frozen, his wife is killed, and he is suspected of her murder. Starring Mark Stevens, Marianne Koch, and Wolfgang Lukschy. Maybe you want to be frozen alive or maybe you don’t. Life can get complicated. A curious 1960s movie.
The story is about a Nazi doctor and escaped prisoner-of-war who goes to London. There, via the Nazi underground, he poses as an Australian bacteriologist, whom he has killed and taken his place, assigned to do some medical research. His plot is, using British labs and knowledge, to find a method of immunizing the German people against a plague the Nazis are going to use in their next war. Complications arise when his British assistant, Robert Beatty, becomes suspicious of his actions, and an Australian girl who knew the real doctor shows up. Starring Robert Beatty, Mervyn Johns, and Nova Pilbeam. An interesting British thriller made only a few years after WWII.
From his secret laboratory, Captain Z-Ro and his associates use their time machine, the ZX-99, to learn from the past and plan for the future. Starring Roy Steffens, Bruce Haynes, and Jack Cahill. Plus: Tales of Tomorrow-Verdict From Space (1951) Gordon Kent is on trial for allegedly killing a scientist in an underground cavern. Desperately, he tries to explain what they found inside the cave, and the implications for the future of mankind. Starring Lon McCallister, Martin Brandt, and William Lally. Two early 1950s Sci-Fi television shows to give you a taste of the early days of television.
A playboy adventure novelist joins his publisher on an expedition to Voodoo Island in the Caribbean, where a cancer researcher is being forced to turn the tribes-people into zombies. The cancer researcher discovers that by treating the natives with snake venom he can turn them into bug-eyed zombies. Uninterested in this information, the unfortunate man is forced by his evil employer to create an army of the creatures in order to conquer the world. Starring William Joyce, Heather Hewitt, and Walter Coy. This film sat on the shelf unreleased for six years until is was picked up by distributor Jerry Gross (of Cinemation Industries), who needed a horror film to play on the bottom of a double bill with his in-house production I Drink Your Blood (1970). The title was changed to “I Eat Your Skin” and released in 1970.
Based on an Edgar Allen Poe story, a mysterious man is sent deep into the forest to investigate the bizarre behavior of the notorious Dr. Tarr. What he stumbles upon is the doctor’s torture dungeon, a hellish insane asylum completely cut off from civilization and presided over by the ultimate madman. The inmates of the insane asylum have taken over the institution, imprisoned the doctors and staff; These people have been savagely chained, tortured and stuck in glass cages, then forced to take part in gruesome games of ritual slaughter. Starring Claudio Brook, Arthur Hansel, and Ellen Sherman. This seems like a British film but it is actually a Mexican movie that was filmed in English. Also called House of Madness.
Ten years before, Michael was hypnotized by a very unstable doctor into killing his own parents. Then he is locked up in the mental institution for it. In the present (or the present time of the movie) Michael, his girlfriend Sandy, and their friends Lucas and Jeannie head to an island for a vacation, where the doctor has moved his work to, and has started a new experiment in reprogramming people’s minds. And Michael wants revenge for what was done to him, planning to kill the doctor. Starring Michael Hurst, Margaret Umbers, and William Upjohn. Made in New Zealand you might call this a Kiwi Mind Control Horror film!
The world’s water supply has dried up due to some sort of apocalypse. A beautiful woman holds the secret to where one of the last springs being guarded by a group of Amazons. A “Road Warrior” like crew captures her and tries to make her talk through brutal torture. The hero (Styrker) unites with some of the remaining “good guys” and the Amazons and frees the woman. They go on to a “Road Warrior” type of concluding battle with the bad guys. Starring Steve Sandor, Andrea Savio, and William Ostrander. Filmed in the Philippines as a Mad Max type movie you might call this a Noodle-Post-Apocalypse film.
