Horrors of the Black Museum

(1959) *1/2

Following some cheery music a young woman in London receives an anonymous package in the mail. Her roommate speculates that it’s from a secret admirer. The contents of the package reveal an expensive set of binoculars. Eager to check them out she lifts them up and, boing!, two spikes plunge into her eyes and into her brain. At this point I was thinking, “All right!” naively anticipating an instant classic. Sadly my “All right!” was left all alone, never to be joined by any friends.

Apparently this ridiculous murder is only one in a string of recent gruesome London murders. Cut to Scotland Yard where Superintendent Graham struggles to find a motive for these seemingly unrelated murders. After all, the victims did not know one another and were not related in any way. Could someone just be doing this for the hell of it? Then this guy enters,

and apparently channeling the gift of prophecy for a moment I yelled out, “He’s the killer!” It turns out that I was right. Don’t worry though; they pretty much crowbar this idea into your head with numerous “clues”. Who is this handsome chap? Why he’s Edmund Bancroft, Britain's premier 'True Crime' writer. Like most sociopaths, he considers himself to be superior to the police, who he views as inept boobs. Bancroft loves pointing out their ineptitude in print. Bancroft has the uncanny ability of being able to predict additional murders. This isn’t too amazing given that he plans every one of them. We learn that nut-job Bancroft uses the royalties from his popular crime novels to fund a “Black Museum” in the basement of his home. His not-for-the-public museum includes wax reproductions of famous murders along with instruments of torture (e.g., the binoculars). Like any good madman Bancroft has a helper, the nerdy Rick who is controlled by Bancroft via hypnosis and a Jekyll and Hyde-like drug for some reason. When Rick is under Bancroft’s spell his face turns dark and waxy.

Watch out tart, Rick quietly placed a guillotine above your bed!

Things go great for a while. Bancroft hypnotizes Rick and in turn Rick carries out planned murders. Bancroft rakes in the dough. Periodically people figure out that Bancroft is evil, which means they must be eliminated.


It all begins to unravel one day when Rick brings his girlfriend to the secret Black Museum. Enraged, Bancroft hypnotizes and instructs Rick to kill his girlfriend at an amusement park,

The jig is up, however, and Bancroft’s time is limited.
I grabbed this film because it was recently given the deluxe treatment on DVD, which led me to believe that it must be good. I was wrong it stinks. The murders were far and few between and, as I boasted above, you’ll figure out the murderer 5 minutes into the film. Boo!