The murder of the wife
is one of the creepiest murder scenes I've ever seen! Especially the stabbings.
What's the Spanish for drunken bum?
Yeah that really was an effective scene. I found the basic plot really interesting and original. Boris researching the crime is actually the killer and doesn't know it because he doesn't remember that part of his life. I admit I didn't see that coming.
My problem with the movie is that it was not artfully executed to any degree close to matching the quality of the main idea. Boris is the only decent acting performance and several of the characters and scenes are totally superfluous.
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Once Karloff was revealed to be the real killer 36 minutes in, I felt the filmmakers just didn't know where to go next. And just how would he have had a fixation on Vera Day's character 20 years before, when she would have been around 5 years old? The murders foreshadow the 'mad slasher' era of the early 80s, but without the gore (quite a few stabbings for only 3 killings). As the wife, Elizabeth Allan had also worked with Lugosi in MARK OF THE VAMPIRE, but her potentially intriguing character just didn't have the necessary depth to give her ultimate fate any real impact. Still a very active role for the 69 year old Karloff, followed by another in CORRIDORS OF BLOOD, with Christopher Lee.
"I take pleasure in great beauty" - James Bond
The script writers were not very good at being very accurate with the timing of events in this movie. The opening scene takes place in 1860 and the rest in 1880. They keep referring to the Boris Karloff character as being a young doctor 20 years before. He was about 70 at the time and would be 50, 20 years earlier. Hardly a "young" doctor. It also refers to the Jack the Ripper case but that wasn't until 1888, 8 years after this movie takes place.
shareexactly. karloff was too old to play the 'young doctor'
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