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A young man (Nick Adams without his rebel outfit!) visits his fiancé's (the beautiful Suzan Farmer) estate to discover that her wheelchair-bound scientist father (Boris Karloff) has discovered a meteorite that emits mutating radiation rays that have turned the plants in his greenhouse to giants.

When his own wife falls victim to this mysterious power, the old man takes it upon himself to destroy the glowing object with disastrous results.

Solid horror-mystery with good atmosphere, set designs and performances, especially by Freda Jackson as the scientist's wife who hides away and Boris Karloff as the scientist who is hiding something (which usually is the case!). He might be aged but he still has a commanding presence and exudes menace. The special effects are adequate for its time, and the action is as lively as the plot. It's good fun and reminds me of the Hammer Horror films.

A deranged scientist, Dr. Stephen Arrowsmith (Paul Muller), catches his beautiful wife, Muriel (Barbara Steele), conducting an affair with their gardener, David (Rik Battaglia). The enraged Arrowsmith imprisons the lovers in his laboratory. Chained to the wall, Muriel and David suffer slow, painful deaths as the vicious Arrowsmith inflicts sadistic torture upon them.

And he marries his late wife's unstable blonde stepsister whose fate may be even more ghastly as the ghost of her sister takes revenge on her brute husband ...

Barbara Steele, is like Vincent Price or Boris Karloff, in a sense that she fits the gothic horror genre so well, and she lives up to her scary reputation as a vengeful ghost and the mentally fragile blonde stepsister. Both roles she excels in - the atmosphere is creepy, the violence sadistic but never gratuitous like in later horror pics. It never takes over the well-crafted story that is suspenseful and compelling. Paul muller as the deranged husband who only married Steele for her assets ( I mean, her money) is really wicked. He's real villain of the piece and he's aided by the alluring Helga Line.

Emily Gault (Hazel Court) arrives at the Carrell mansion determined to rekindle an old relationship with Guy Carrell (Ray Milland), despite the disapproval of his sister, Kate. Guy overcomes his all-consuming fear of being buried alive long enough to marry Emily but soon becomes obsessed again, building a crypt designed to guarantee that he will not fall prey to his most dreaded nightmare.

Trying to prove that he has been cured of his phobia, he opens his father's tomb and is shocked into a catatonic state. His worst fears are realized as he is lowered into a grave and covered over, apparently never to learn that the treachery of someone very dear to him was directly responsible for his predicament.

Ray Milland is an offbeat choice for a character fearing to be buried alive, but he's excellent in the role, capturing the torment he feels over his obsession of being buried in a crypt while in cataleptic state, a condition his father had. It's a grim subject matter with some fine atmosphere of swirling fog, cemeteries , and crypts. It's a rather gripping tale, which ends with a punch. A twist in the tale, indeed. Hazel Court is ravishing as Milland's wife. Remember seeing this chiller for the first time on BBC2 in the early nineties in a series of Roger Cormon "Poe-cycles".