In this regard, Horrors of the Black Museum succeeds quite well. One minute you've got a blonde floozie (June Cunningham) performing a lascivious jukebox dance in a seedy pub (though most of the bar patrons hardly seem to notice) and the next scene she's getting decapitated by a fiend in her bedroom. So it goes for most of the females on display here. The film is certainly guilty of misogyny; all of the women in this bleak universe are either prostitutes, blackmailers (like the antiques shop dealer), dim-witted, suffocating or a combination thereof. The men don't come off any better though, from Michael Gough's impotent killer to his weak-willed assistant to the bumbling Scotland Yard investigators. The relentlessly misanthropic tone can get to you after awhile but it does make for a fascinating viewing experience (college professors and film theorists could have a field day with the conservative, anti-sex attitudes expressed throughout the film via specific characters and dialogue). And there ARE some guilty pleasures to be had along the way, particularly Gough's vitriolic, scene-chewing performance and some of his cod dialogue. Sample: When he brags about his private chamber of horrors to his assistant, he says, "You know, Rick, the Black Museum at Scotland Yard is not very selective - a great deal of clutter....but mine is ALIVE."
With the release of Horrors of the Black Museum in 1959, British horror films entered a new phase, one in which more explicit violence and gore were allowed on the screen. Herman Cohen's British company, Anglo Amalgamated, which released Horrors, quickly captured the audience for exploitation films with this film and two others, Circus of Horrors (1960) and Peeping Tom (1960). While Horrors of the Black Museum and Circus of Horrors were geared for hardcore horror genre fans and nobody else, Peeping Tom was actually a stunningly directed psychological thriller which was completely misunderstood at the time of its release. Though it's considered a masterpiece now, most critics savaged it in print in 1960 and its poor reception officially ended Michael Powell's directorial career for years.
But back to Horrors of the Black Museum, which has been eagerly awaited on DVD by the horror film community for years. VCI's disk, which is being presented as part of the "Herman Cohen Collection," is shown in the 16X9 enhanced Anamorphic 2.35:1 ratio and comes with a huge assortment of extras. One of the most entertaining is the original Hypno-Vista opening segment, hosted by registered psychologist and hypnotist Emile Franchel, which was shown at the beginning of the film during its American engagements. Franchel, who speaks haltingly as he is indeed hypnotized also appears to have the "Barbara Walters" syndrome; he can't say his Rs. He also looks a bit like comedian Steve Allen so it's hard to take him seriously on any level, particularly when his opening remark is "Originally I came from London, England, but now I'm living in Hollywood, California." The disk also features a video tribute to the late Herman Cohen by film journalist Tom Weaver and Cohen's associate, Didier Chatelain, commentaries by Cohen, music composer Gerard Schurmann and film critic David Del Valle, English and French language options, a photo gallery, the original European theatrical trailer and much more. You have to admit it's a pretty handsome package for a film that has little artistic merit. But in terms of sadism, sleaze and a certain camp quality, Horrors of the Black Museum deserves its infamous reputation.
One last point of interest: When Cohen was interviewed by Tom Weaver for his book, Attack of the Monster Movie Makers: Interviews with 20 Genre Giants, he said, "Every instrument of murder in Black Museum was from an actual murder and is in Scotland Yard's Black Museum. The murder with the binoculars happened in the thirties, in Kent, which is outside of London. A young stable boy who was very much in love with his master's daughter was fired for having sex with her in the stables. And she would have nothing to do with him after that. When the Royal Ascot meet started the following year, she received through the mail a pair of binoculars, mailed from the Paddington Post Office. She took them to the window, she focused them, and the needles penetrated through her eyes and killed her. The stable boy was found, was tried and was hung. And those binoculars are in the Black Museum in Scotland Yard. The ice tongs, the portable guillotine [the other murder implements in Black Museum] - people don't realize it, but these were actual murders in England."
For more information about Horrors of the Black Museum, visit VCI Entertainment. To order Horrors of the Black Museum, go to TCM Shopping.
by Jeff Stafford
