Legend of Horror

Young rake Pierre is convicted of the forced seduction of the mayor's daughter and sentenced to fifteen years of hard labor. When the warden expresses sympathy, Pierre declares that he does not intend to carry out his full sentence. To temper the hothead, the warden assigns him to a cell with Sydney, an aged madman whose only friend is a rat he has named Tommy. While they are at work breaking rocks, Sydney injures his leg and Pierre helps him, but the guard comes by and whips Sydney to force him to continue working. Incensed, Pierre attacks the guard, landing himself in "the hole," a rat-infested pit. When he is returned to his cell, only semi-conscious, Sydney begs his forgiveness and nurses him back to health. Soon Pierre revives and, when Sydney is out working, discovers that the old man has been digging an escape tunnel through the floor. Sydney later informs him that it is only days from being finished. That night, Sydney screams in his sleep, and upon being awakened by Pierre, recalls his youth working for his uncle: Young Sydney arrives at the town of his uncle Thurber, whom he has never met, and is led to Thurber's clock shop by a sweet, crippled boy named Tommy. There, Thurber cruelly runs the boy off, then attempts to throw out Sydney, who assuages him by promising to work for free. The greedy, malevolent merchant, with only one eye and a hooked nose, gives Sydney a bed in the store. The first night, the sound of all the clocks disturbs Sydney, who hears his uncle cackling in his room upstairs and, spying through the door, spots him hiding gold in the floorboards. Suspecting the Sydney has seen him, the old man goes to his bed and, in response to Sydney's complaints about the clocks, describes them as metal hearts. Just then, midnight strikes, and the noises of the clocks' bells seems deafening to Sydney. In the morning, Sydney gives his share of food to Tommy, then dispatches him before Thurber sees. A female customer arrives and admires a vase, but upon noticing that it is chip, offers one pound in payment, earning Thurber's wrath. Sydney mourns the vase's imperfection, and then, when a pretty girl enters looking for a gift, accidentally drops the vase, ruining it. Thurber throws out the girl and excoriates Sydney, sentencing him to repay its worth in weeks of hours of work. Later, Thurber learns that Tommy drowned in the river, and maliciously informs Sydney, after declaring his awareness that Sydney was feeding the boy. In the present, elderly Sydney tells Pierre that Thurber hated Tommy because of his imperfections, and needed help being freed from his own. The next morning, Sydney and Pierre continue work on the tunnel, using a shiv Sydney has hidden. When they return to the rock quarry, the sadistic guard taunts them, not knowing that they are only hours away from escape. That night, they finish the tunnel and plan to leave the next night. At work that day, Sydney collects grass for the rat, and when a guard sees him, the old man states the grass is for his friend, who is digging a tunnel. The guard informs the warden, and just as they head to the cell to search it, Sydney, aided by the rat, kills him another guard with a shiv. The guard has fatally wounded Tommy, however, and Sydney tells Pierre he has no reason to go on, but Pierre convinces him he should bury Tommy outside the prison. They climb through the tunnel to the wilderness outside, where Sydney buries Tommy and the two escapees flee the guards pursuing them. Finally reaching a cottage, they hide in the barn, exhausted. Pierre, is the ex-boyfriend of the woman who owns the cottage, but she warns him she is now married and they must leave. The guards arrive, and after Sydney slits one's throat, the other guard fires a warning shot to alert his companions. Sydney and Pierre flee to a nearby graveyard. Deep inside, Pierre removes his shirt, revealing scars across his back which enflame Sydney's disgust and pity. Sidney recalls killing Thurber: after Tommy's funeral, Sydney exults that now Tommy is no longer suffering from being "abnormal." Just then, Thurber recalls that upon visiting Sydney twenty years earlier, the young boy had a malformed hand. Sydney states quickly that it was "corrected," then remarks that Thurber must feel sad and unfortunate about his eye. Suddenly frightened, Thurber retreats to his bed, but later awakens to find Sydney watching him sleep. Sidney states that he has turned off all the clocks but still hears one ticking, and then reveals that the ticking is Thurber's heart. Admitting that he is not really Sydney but killed him, as well as Tommy, because they were imperfect, Sydney suffocates Thurber. Soon after, the police arrive, and although Sydney welcomes them busily, as they speak he is distracted by the sound of a beating heart. Raving, he confesses to Thurber's murder and screams that the beating heart is calling his name. Back in the present, Sydney has tied up Pierre and stabs him to death. Stumbling out into the cemetery, he sees Pierre and all of the people he has killed walking toward him, chanting the word "imperfect." As they surround him, Sydney falls into a grave, where a stake impales his heart.