favorite movie #81 - halloween edition: horrors of the black museum

Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #81 - Horrors of the Black Museum (1959) - This movie scared the bejesus out of me when I saw it as a kid on Chiller Theater or some similar Friday or Saturday night horror programming on television. It opens up with a gruesome murder of a beautiful young woman. She is sent a pair of binoculars through the mail, and when she holds them up to her eyes, long blades pop out ... As much as I lament the slasher genre and its ilk, I have to admit that they are a direct descendant of movies like this one, which I also have to admit, thrilled me. Each murder depicted is more gruesome than the last, and I can still remember checking my bed to be sure there wasn't a hidden guillotine mechanism in the headboard for more than few nights after watching this flick. Thanks for the nightmares! Of course all the victims are nubile young women in form-fitting outfits, so there is an element of sex to the whole proceedings. Michael Gough plays a writer "helping" the police, who has his own personal black museum, contains instruments of torture. The British color film was promoted as being filmed in "Hypnovista," which was actually a prologue to the movie that included a hypnotist.

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