Chamber of Horrors

There's a lot to like in CHAMBER OF HORRORS, if you can forgive the copycat style that makes it look like a rip-off of HOUSE OF WAX at times. But the plot, involving a killer (Patrick O'Neal) taking revenge on those who punished him for his crimes, moves swiftly amid some handsome color settings and should keep fright fans interested. O'Neal is very persuasive in the central role.

Less can be said of others in the cast--including Marie Windsor who is mainly wasted in a supporting role, Suzy Parker whose role has no depth at all and Patrice Wymore.

Laura Devon is a stunning blond beauty and makes the most of her decorative assignment as the woman who sets up the men targeted for gruesome killings. The wax museum itself is an intriguing setting but the script is not up to the standards of the Vincent Price film with a somewhat similar storyline. Wilfrid Hyde-White and Cesare Danova are effective enough as the men who want to trap the killer.

Recommended mainly for its excellent use of Victorian atmosphere and crisp, clear Technicolor.

"Chamber of Horrors" is deliciously absurd and tacky horror of the 1960s, and I love it wholeheartedly! The plot of the film was intended as the pilot for a TV-series, but eventually it was considered too gruesome and shocking for television. So, instead, director Hy Averback and his crew turned the concept into a long-feature film and added a few redundant but contemporary popular gimmicks like the "Fear Flasher" and the "Horror Horn". These features are obviously inspired by the marketing tricks invented by the legendary William Castle ("The Tingler", "13 Ghost", ...) and warn viewers when supposedly shocking sequences are about to start, so they have the time to cover eyes and ears. Cute but derivative, of course, and quite unnecessary because "Chamber of Horrors" is already sufficiently inventive, entertaining and compelling without having to use silly gimmicks.

I'd really wish that someone in Hollywood would pick up the idea and produce the overdue TV-series after all! The concept is inspired by the 1953 classic "House of Wax" and set in Baltimore around the end of the 19th century. The local wax museum proudly exhibits gruesome real-life crimes and the series would feature the museum's two curators as amateur-criminologists that outsmart the police and solve macabre murder cases. Clever! The first assignment for the handsome Anthony Draco (Cesare Danova) and the witty Harold Blount (Wilfred Hyde-White) is apprehending the crazy Jason Cravatte, who strangled his fiancé with her own hair and married the corpse afterwards. Cravatte is arrested and sentenced to death, but he escapes during prison transport by chopping off his own manacled hand and throwing himself into the Baltimore River. With a hook for a hand and a sexy French prostitute as an accomplice, Cravatte returns to Baltimore with the fiendish plan to kill everyone who wronged him in court.

Vintage Grand-Guignol material, in other words, and "Chamber of Horrors" is fantastically entertaining thanks to its bizarrely twisted plot details, grotesque scenery and vivid acting performances. Patrick O'Neal is so delightfully sinister and menacing as the homicidal Jason Cravatte that even his famous lookalike Vincent Price couldn't had played the role better! The script also introduces numerous intriguing supportive characters that were clearly supposed to become recurring regulars in the series, so it's a crying shame the format didn't go through. Even in the extended 99-minutes version, the gore and bloodshed are rather limited, so feel free to keep watching when you see the Fear Flasher and hear the Horror Horn.

Since they had to use the Fear Flasher and the Horror Horn to sell this failed TV pilot, one might make the incorrect assumption that this is a bad film. In fact, it is excellent within its limitations. Patrick O'Neal is superb as Jason - suave, cunning, a devil with the ladies, cruel and absolutely insane. His story is told in a very interesting fragmented style. We know little about him when he is first arrested but as Draco and his associates track him down we learn much. The subject matter and milieu are a bit seamy for television which is why this was released theatrically at first. I never saw it there though I passed a theater where it was playing. For years I had seen it only in black and white. Recently I saw a color TV print and it looks great. O"Neal is a wonderful Vincent Price stand-in with Cesare Danova, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Phillip Bourneuf,Jeanette Nolan and Jose Rene Ruiz ( as Tun Tun) doing great work. Laura Devon has the best line. As she tries to clumsily describe Jason she suddenly bursts out " What am I thinking ? He is the easiest man in the world to identify. He only has one hand!"

This is above all a fun horror film about two criminologists in the late 19th century Baltimore area(one decidedly English - Wilfred Hyde-White and the other decidedly Italian - Cesare Danova)working in a wax museum and uncovering crimes for/with the police. Apparently it was to be a pilot for a television series, and it is very unfortunate it never progressed that far. Hyde-White is always a treat and Danova is rather good too. This story deals with capturing Jason Cravatte - a local aristocrat with a fetish for girls in wedding gowns - dead or alive. Patrick O'Neal gives one of his best screen performances in the role of this psychotic, deranged killer who loses his hand and replaces it with all kinds of cutlery(ax, sword, scalpel, etc...) The film also boast the two gimmicks of the Fear Flasher when the screen will flash with green to let the viewer know something terrifying is about to happen and is preceded by the Horror Horn announcing its arrival. We are told in the beginning of the film that this will occur four times and none of those times are scary in the least bit. What makes this film work is the acting by Hyde-White, Danova, O'Neal, and people like Wayne Rogers as a constable, Jose Rene Ruiz as Pepe the dwarfish assistant, a cameo by Tony Curtis helps out, and all the acting is workmanlike and credible. Hy Averback , a television director of repute and ability, gives the film a very stylish feel with its Victorian-like atmosphere, swirling fogs, and seedy locales when needed. The wax museum itself is indeed impressive as well as is the denouement of the film. This "little" film - judging by its limited audience - is much better than one might at first expect given the gimmicks and story.

Jason Cravatte (Patrick O'Neal) forces a reverend at gunpoint to marry him and the dead body of Melinda Sawyer. The police is brought in but Jason had already escaped. Anthony Draco (Cesare Danova) and Harold Blount (Wilfrid Hyde-White) own a wax museum and consider themselves amateur detectives. The police searches throughout Baltimore for the disturbed killer.He is caught and sentenced to hang. He manages to escape from a train transport but he had to chop off his own hand. With his new hand replacement, he takes revenge upon those who wronged him.

This is an old horror with a gimmick. At the beginning, the narrator explains the Fear Flasher and Horror Horn would precede the most horrific scenes. That is the best part of the movie. It's campy and fun in treating it seriously. The actual use of the gimmick does not do much. The grotesque violent scenes are not so shocking especially with modern horror eyes. There is blood but the camera cuts away before the actual violence. The story starts interesting but it flounders in the second half. The characters don't have the special interest and the actors are not the most charismatic. It's a passable bland old horror with a cheesy gimmick which is more fun in the imagination than it is in reality.