The format for Tales of the Uncanny (AKA The Living Dead) is an unusual one: it's based on several tales by Edgar Allen Poe and Robert Louis Stevenson (with a bit of 1924 silent film Waxworks thrown in for good measure), but rather than take a traditional anthology route, the result is an amalgamation of the stories, each segueing into the next, with the antagonist and protagonist the common thread running through the whole thing.
The film opens with a version of the oft-told Poe story The Black Cat: journalist Frank Briggs (Harald Paulsen) investigates the case of a missing woman after hearing a scream one night while driving with his fiancée. Leading the police to the house where he heard the scream, he discovers that the occupant, Mörder (Paul Wegener), has killed his wife and walled her up in the basement. Mörder escapes and hides out in a wax museum, with Briggs hot on his tail; the pair have a fight in the museum, but Mörder manages to get away once again, this time seeking refuge in an asylum.
The next part of the film is based on Poe's The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether (see also Juan López Moctezuma's House of Madness), for when Frank arrives at the asylum, he discovers that the lunatics have escaped, locked up the staff, and are now in charge of the place. This film may be a spoof of the genre, but the scene where Briggs is grabbed by the crazies and sentenced to death is genuinely frightening.
Thankfully, the police arrive in time to save Frank, but Mörder vanishes again. Briggs gets to meet his nemesis six months later when he investigates a 'suicide club' (this part based on Stevenson's The Suicide Club), where rich people gamble with their lives. Mörder is head of the club, and forces Briggs to play.
The freewheeling lunacy of the film is a lot of fun, and director Richard Oswald successfully balances the chills and thrills with the comedy whilst delivering some memorable moments with some great production design: the automated wax museum is inventive and very entertaining, and Mörder's HQ at the suicide club features a cool Bond-style booby-trapped chair and an amazing clock to countdown Briggs final minutes.
