Smartorhypo
Highly Overrated But Still Good
Sexyloutak
Absolutely the worst movie.
Marva
It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
mark.waltz
To recent film audiences, Michael Gough is best known as Alfred, the Butler, in the first few of the "Batman" movie franchise. But to classic horror movie buffs, he's the forgotten master of terror, brushed aside to obscurity among names like Tod Slaughter and Lionel Atwill. But in rediscovering the series of British grand guignole near masterpieces, I have come to gain an appreciation for the artistic end of the horror movie game, where he, tall and lanky like Boris Karloff and Vincent Price, and not nearly as obvious in his horrific activities like Bela Lugosi or the forgotten Tod Slaughter. In this film, he's the proprietor of a private museum of terrors, and when a series of gruesome slaughters begin to plague London, Scotland Yard goes to see him, not as a suspect, but to aide them in their quest to find the maniacal killer, because of his knowledge of the type of tortures used to knock off the victims.The killings themselves are done very subtly, but indicate the gruesome ways in which people are killed. A jilting lover gets the guillotine; A nosy shopkeeper becomes a bloody mess thanks to a pair of ice tongs. The very first scene in the film has a woman looking through a dual kaleidoscope, and screams out in agony as blood drips quickly down her body. By doing all of this subtly, the filmmakers really make the viewer prepare for the unexpected, yet when these creepy murders do occur, the way they are presented will still have you either jump, go into a quick shock (then be convulsed with laughter over the ingenious way they are presented), or drop your jaw and want to re-wind to see it all over again. The number of Gough's victims also includes his young assistant (Graham Curnow) who has basically been blackmailed into silence, and then is later drugged into committing his own murder so Gough will be able to keep him in check. The finale, set at an amusement park, is a riveting conclusion to what deserves to be added to the list of "The best horror films you've never even heard of."
Hitchcoc
I saw this as a child. The opening scene where a young innocent woman uses a pair of gift binoculars. As she looks through the eyepieces, spikes come shooting out, through her eyes and into her brain, killing her. Apparently, there have been a series of murders of women that the police have been unable to solve. A journalist who writes about gruesome murders harasses the police over their perceived incompetence. He is anathema to the authorities, but they don't have anything they can prove. He has a partner, a young man who follows his every wish, and they have their own black museum, which is a place where weapons used in murders and serious crimes are displayed. As things progressed, there are more and more hideous events. The journalist is always there when things happen. The ending is when it all falls apart. While the movie is good to look at, there isn't much to recommend this.
Leofwine_draca
Is it forever Michael Gough's fate to play crippled characters? With his hand-less performance in DR TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS, his wheelchair-bound role in HORROR HOSPITAL, and now this cane-assisted stance in HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM, it seems this unfortunate actor always comes off the worst. But I digress. HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM is a classic example of an early exploitation film, produced by non less than Herman Cohen, responsible for loads of classic films of this type in the late '50s/early '60s. With an off beat and clever idea (crime writer commits murder to sell his stories) and a twist monster-on-the-loose ending (with Cohen involved, what else would you expect?), the film never fails to entertain.Chief entertainment comes from the series of murders, which, while not explicitly gory like the Friday the 13th films, are however all staged elaborately and decoratively, and also cleverly, with much relish, like the murders in THEATRE OF BLOOD and the PHIBES films (but never so campy!). Highlights include the memorable binocular death and a woman having her head cut off by an axe, but the best death (or tackiest) occurs when the doctor is electrocuted by a bad special effect, then has his skin boiled off and becomes a skeleton! This scene is a piece of classic horror and easily the best moment of the film.Although the monster makeup leaves something to be desired (it basically looks like grey paint), there is a good scene with the monster in a hall of mirrors, where he is taunted by a young couple before turning on them with a knife! While none of the acting is sub-par, with the likes of Shirley Anne Field involved (also, Geoffrey Keen has a role as a tough policeman), the film really belongs to Michael Gough as the criminal genius. He also sports the same ridiculous bleached hair as he did in the next year's KONGA! Gough is superbly civilised and a man of true evil, much like in his other films, and as always he's a delight to watch, I'm surprised that this prolific actor is overlooked so much and in the shadow of contemporaries like Cushing and Lee but he always puts in a solid, tongue in cheek performance and raises the level of the films he's in (much like Peter Cushing did). HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM is a typical piece of '50s exploitation, much in the style of CIRCUS OF HORRORS and is a film which is raised above average by the strength of Gough's performance alone. Definitely one for the collection.
MartinHafer
"Horrors of the Black Museum" is a reasonably enjoyable film, though some other films with similar styles of wild murders are certainly a lot more enjoyable such as "Theatre of Blood" and the Dr. Phibes films. There are also a few times where the script could have used a bit of a polish.Michael Gough plays a nasty writer who is creating a museum of crime. The police think he's creepy but also respect his practically encyclopedic knowledge of murders. What they don't realize is that his books and museum are so accurate because he commits crimes...or at least, by proxy. It turns out that he's hypnotized his assistant into becoming a murderer and he does all the crimes for him---presumably because Gough's character has extreme difficulty walking.As for the murders, they're very grisly for 1959 and often very creative. Seeing one person with spikes shooting into their eyes another decapitated and another killed with ice tongs to the throat certainly is memorable!! But in the case of the ice tongs, it's actually VERY stupid and a bad cliché. This is because someone realizes who the killer is and instead of going to the cops, she tries to blackmail him!!! And, there is no one around to stop him from killing her...DUH!!! The ending also seemed a tad disappointing. Still, the craziness of the killing and the typically angry performance by Gough make this worth seeing even if it isn't exactly art and even if you learn almost immediately after the beginning of the film who the guy is who is behind the killings!!
