HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM
Directed by: Arthur Crabtree
Starring: Michael Gough, June Cunningham, Shirley Anne Field, Graham Curnow
At the end of the 1950's, the city of London is gripped by fear when a serial killer is murdering young women in fiendish ways. Scotland Yard seem to be always one step behind the killer, and hounded by best-selling author and columnist Edmund Bancroft, who publishes lurid details about the case alongside the police force's failure to stop them. However, there may be more to Bancroft's interest in the cases beyond selling newspapers and books…
HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM starts as it means to go on, with a shocking, lurid murder which occurs without any warning. Commissioner Wayne and Inspector Lodge are at a loss as to why the murders are occurring - the women seem to be selected at random and the methods of murder are always different. The only tenuous link is that the murder weapons are very similar to ones kept in the police archive, known as The Black Museum, suggesting that someone with access to that facility may be the murderer.
Its not long before the audience is clued in to the killer's identity - its Rick, Bancroft's young assistant, who has been hypnotized by his boss and injected with a serum not unlike the one from Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Bancroft has his own "Black Museum" and often curates esoteric murder weapons from an antiques dealer. The serum brings out Rick's rage against the world, actually altering his appearance when it reaches boiling point. Bancroft sets Rick to get rid of his ex-lover, Joan Berkley, and his disfigured face is witnessed by Joan's neighbours when he makes his escape.
HORRORS… is an interesting film, coming just a year before the likes of Psycho and Peeping Tom. There is no real protagonist to the story: the police are ineffective, dismissive and unengaging throughout the film. There is no real detective work being undertaken and its easy to take the side of the film's populace in their disappointment of the constabulary. The film instead centres around the mastermind of Bancroft, and luckily Michael Gough is up to the task, basking in the glow of the police's contempt for him and the popularity of his novel. Bancroft is a mean-spirited man with a contempt for women. His dressing-down of Rick when he discovers he's got a girlfriend displays this perfectly.
The closest resemblance to a protagonist is Rick, who's really the film's anti-hero. He's been styled to represent a more American, James Dean/Steve McQueen figure - except with a British accent. The fact that he is involved in a secret romance with a young woman called Angela helps the audience to lean towards him.
When the film diverts attention away from Bancroft, it is mainly to set up the next murder set-piece. Joan Berkley (Cunningham) gets a lengthy sequence, showing her to be a likeable, effervescent young woman enjoying life, to the point her death is really felt by the audience. Similarly the head-strong Angela's makes a positive impression on the audience, especially because Bancroft is not a fan!
The overall pacing of the film is, at best, stiff, but there are the murders (kept mostly off-screen thanks to the scissors of the censors of the time) do manage to keep things very interesting and there is some sustained excitement through the climax of the film set at a local funfair.
This remastered blu-ray edition as part of the Cult Classics series contains a number of extras, including an interview and audio commentary from novelist Kim Newman, as well as some replica lobby cards and the original Hypnovision introduction.
THE VERDICT
Horrors of the Black Museum thrives on lurid detail and sensationalism and is all the better for it. It has an episodic nature to the narrative as the only consistent character is Bancroft, our evil mastermind and sometime killer. The murders themselves are the most interesting part of the film but there are some decent moments throughout, including the rushed conclusion.