Horror fans love to ask, “What was the first slasher film ever made?” Truthfully, I don’t believe we can point to one particular movie as the start of the subgenre. Popular answers such as 1960’s Psycho and Peeping Tom, 1974’s Black Christmas, and Halloween in 1978 are all candidates because each one established elements that became synonymous with slasher cinema. However, there is one fright flick I believe is just as important in developing the slasher but not as commonly cited: the British-American Horrors of the Black Museum. What it lacks in class, it makes up for in grisly violence. In an era dominated by giant bugs and creatures from outer space, Horrors emphasized blood, gore, and elaborate death devices. To paraphrase Oscar Hammerstein II, those are a few of my favorite things.
Released in 1959, Horrors of the Black Museum is just about the nastiest little film to come out of the decade. Hammer may have stirred up some controversy with their use of bright red blood, but the movies were essentially old-fashioned costume melodramas with urbane dialogue and brilliant visuals. As important as gore was to Hammer’s success, the films would still be strong without it. The same cannot be said about Horrors, which is built entirely around gruesome killings. If there isn’t a mutilation on screen, it’s being discussed in the dialogue. To remove the violence would be to mute the film entirely.
Inspired by the real Black Museum (Scotland Yard’s collection of crime memorabilia), Horrors tells the tale of Edmond Bancroft, a crime author with a unique writing process: he hypnotizes his assistant into becoming a deformed killer to provide him with story material. This results in a series of sensational murders that include eye-gouging binoculars, a guillotine above a bed frame, a vat of acid, and killer ice tongs. Will Bancroft continue his mad campaign of carnage, or will the police throw the book at the wrathful writer?
I don’t think Horrors of the Black Museum is a masterpiece by anyone’s definition, yet it is undoubtedly a watchable shocker with enough lurid details to satisfy a devoted gorehound. Even if it is relatively tame by today’s standards, sequences like the piercing binoculars still have the power to make you squirm. And if I find that ghastly in 2023, imagine how mortifying that must have been in 1959. Herschell Gordon Lewis pushed gore to an even greater extreme in 1963’s Blood Feast, but Horrors paved the way for all future barf-bag pictures.
Though violence is the main exhibit in Horrors of the Black Museum, star Michael Gough shines as the deranged author. Primarily known for his genial portrayal of Alfred in the Burton/Schumacher Batman series, film buffs unfamiliar with his early work may be shocked to discover how vicious Gough was in the horror genre. Outside of his sympathetic turn in Horror of Dracula, Gough was always a snarling reptile of a man, spitting venom in just about every scene. His performance is almost as nasty as the murders, and I mean that in the kindest way possible.
Producer Herman Cohen originally wanted Vincent Price for the part, while production company Anglo-Amalgamated wanted a British actor for a very understandable reason: it was cheaper. It’s tempting to say that the presence of Dear Uncle Vinnie would’ve made Horrors a better (or at least more popular) film, but I’d argue that he would’ve been far too sympathetic. Price always had a cheeky, likable quality that made it impossible to root against him. Michael Gough was incredible because you always hated him, but loved to hate him. He was a proper heel, and that’s exactly what a film this violent needed. Gough the horror star was a villain worthy of your boos and hisses. It says much about Gough’s talent for evil that he managed to be scarier than the Phantom of the Opera in Hammer’s 1962 adaptation.
In addition to Gough and gore, the U.S. version of Horrors features a truly brilliant gimmick: Hypno-Vista! The stateside release included a 13-minute introduction in which hypnotist Emile Franchele demonstrates the power of hypnotism. This decision was made by the legendary James H. Nicholson of American International Pictures, who felt the movie needed another gimmick. Herman Cohen said of Hypno-Vista: “It helped make the picture a success, I guess, ’cause people were looking for gimmicks at that time.” For the television version, the Hypno-Vista gimmick was removed. Why? Reportedly, it was actually hypnotizing viewers.
Horrors of the Black Museum was the first film in what film critic David Pirie dubbed Anglo-Amalgamated’s “Sadean trilogy” (it was followed by Circus of Horrors and Peeping Tom). Martin Scorsese called it one of his favorite guilty pleasures; he was the reason the film was inducted into the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art. It ain’t Psycho, but it is a quietly important horror movie. When horror centered around Gothic melodrama and science fantasy, Horrors was determined to shock audiences with sheer brutality. It may not be THE first slasher film, though it certainly pioneered the sort of violence that became prevalent in the subgenre. At the very least, it is to the slasher what the blues were to rock. No matter how you look at it, Horrors is an eye-popper.
