Movie Review: The Black Sleep (1956)

Synopsis: While awaiting execution for a murder he claimed he didn't commit, Dr. Gordon Ramsay is rescued by a former colleague, Sir Joel Cadman, who uses a potion he refers to as "the Black Sleep" to make it look like Ramsay died in his cell. Cadman takes Ramsay to his estate and asks for his help with his medical experiments involving the human brain, which Cadman is performing so he can learn how to remove a tumor from his comatose wife. To Ramsay's horror, Cadman is experimenting on live people and leaving the survivors in a state of madness and deformity.

Who's in it? The movie stars Basil Rathbone, Herbert Rudley, Bela Lugosi, Tor Johnson and Lon Chaney, Jr.


Review: I came across The Black Sleep on Amazon Prime last night and mostly because it had a who's who of classic horror movie stars in its cast, I decided to watch it this morning. It ended up being a great choice.

I think the thing I liked most about this movie was Cadman (Rathbone). He was the perfect horror movie bad guy, willing to do evil things and cross a lot of lines but with good intentions. In particular, he wanted to save his wife's life and, to be fair, many of the people he was experimenting on, such as Mungo (Chaney), had conditions he was attempting to cure in the process.

His experiments themselves added quite a bit to the movie as well. Mungo was dangerous and would have random bursts of aggression while many of the other survivors, like Curry (Johnson) had the creepiness factor to them.

Another thing I liked about this movie was the somewhat hopeless situation Ramsay (Rudley) was in. He clearly disapproved of Cadman's experiments, but his options were severely limited because he was believed to be dead and, if he revealed himself to the authorities, he would be executed for murder. Plus, the drug the movie is named after was a major wildcard. It was something that could easily be ejected back into Ramsay, leaving him paralyzed and, after 12 hours, dead.

The ending to the movie was entertaining and suspenseful, with a few twists and quite a bit of action. Plus, unlike way too many other movies, the film provides reasonable closure to the main characters.

On a sadder note, this is Lugosi's last movie, not counting Plan 9 from Outer Space, which was infamously filmed after his death using pre-recorded footage of him and a body double. While I thought he did a decent job as Cadman's mute servant, Casimir, I did find it a bit ironic the legend likely would have played Cadman had the movie been made a few years earlier.

Final Opinion: The movie is worth watching from a historical standpoint because of it being Lugosi's last film. However, it's worth watching even without that because it is an entertaining movie.

My Grade: A


Here are some reviews of other Basil Rathbone movies:

Movie Review: The Spider Woman (1943)

Movie Review: Comedy of Terrors (1963)

Movie Review: Captain Blood (1935)

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