| Haunted Strangler, The Released: 1958 MPAA Rating: Ratings? We don't need no steenking ratings! Genre: Suspense-Thriller Nuts and Bolts: Novelist James Rankin sets out to prove that a man hanged for murder twenty years ago may have in fact been innocent. As Rankin delves further and further into the mystery, he learns things that will change his life forever (Duh). Summary: Our story opens in London of the year 1860. A man named Edward Styles, also known as the Haymarket Strangler is to be hung for the murder of five local women, including MARTHA STEWART!!!! I'm not kidding. He actually strangles Martha Stewart. Don't believe me? Go rent the film. Why he's being hung for this is beyond me. They should be pinning a goddamn medal on his ass. Oh well. I guess cheery ole England has a greater appreciation for little miss homemaker than we Yanks do. Personally, I say fuck the bitch. But I digress. Styles is hung in front of a mob of bloodthirsty toothless citizens. What the fuck is wrong with these Victorian era people? If they're not rampaging through the moors with an arsenal of torches and farming equipment, then they're out taunting some poor shmuck who's about to get his neck stretched. Anywho…Styles is hung despite his woeful desperate cries of innocence. Shortly thereafter, his body is taken to whatever passes for a coroner in those days and treated with lime. The coroner, Doctor Tennant stealthily plants a surgeon's scalpel into the coffin and then faints. Everyone is concentrating on the fallen doctor, that they don't notice the hidden scalpel. Let's flash forward twenty years shall we? It's now 1880 and London is still shitty. In comes Mister James Rankin (Boris Karloff). Now Jimmy is an aging novelist who has this really wacky theory that he wishes to prove. He believes that the only reason men get hanged is because they don't have enough cash to pay for a bigwig lawyer. Seems like pretty sound logic to me. After all, how many millionaires do you see on Death Row? Do you think OJ Simpson would be out knocking a hole in one on a par four if he didn't have Johnny Cochran to help his ass out? Hell no. Rankin and his assistant Ken McColl go to police inspector Burk and ask him about the Styles hanging. Burk offers forth some information and allows Rankin access to documents that are over twenty years old. So Jimmy and McColl go back to their lavish London townhouse. After all, we can't have Karloff living in some shack in the woods now can we? Here we meet Rankin's wife Barbara, as well as his daughter Lily. Lily Rankin also happens to be riding hog on her new boy-toy Kenneth McColl. James doesn't quite realize this yet, but eventually he will come to learn that Lily and Ken plan on getting married. Being an old-world Victorian, Rankin is pissed that Kenneth never asked his permission to allow his daughter to suck on Kenny's cock. But James reluctantly gives his blessing. Yeah, well…whatever. This really has little to do with the plot of the movie so I figured I would just get it out of the way now. So Jimmy starts studying the case file of the Haymarket Strangler. Through this he comes to learn, that the coroner Doctor Tennant mysteriously disappeared shortly after the execution. Rankin also finds Tennant's medical bag, which naturally is missing one scalpel. Now here's the point in the movie where both Rankin (and the viewer) make a leap of logic so vast that even the Incredible Hulk would have trouble traversing the distance. Because Tennant's medical bag is missing the scalpel, Rankin deduces that it must be…(dramatic pause)…in EDWARD STYLES COFFIN!!!! So Rankin decides to ask Inspector Burk permission to exhume Styles' remains. Burk naturally dismisses him claiming such a theory is lunacy at best. But hey…this is KARLOFF we're talking about here. You think he's going to take that shit sitting down? Hell no. So Rankin trucks on down to Newgate prison. Arriving at Newgate with McColl in tow, he finds the warden supervising over a routine prisoner whipping. Good thing too. You gotta whip these guys at least twice a day or else they'll run all over ya. Rankin asks the Warden to exhume Styles' remains. The Warden of course refuses to entertain such a grisly notion. That would be barbaric after all. He then turns and continues with the ritualistic whipping of the prisoners. Rankin is nauseated at the sight of the man's scarred bloody back and faints. He comes to in a small cell some time later. One of the guards helps him to his feet and offers to sneak him into the prison graveyard that night in exchange for some money. Rankin readily agrees to the bribe and returns that night alone. He digs up Styles' skeleton and finds the scalpel. Now this is where it gets weird. For some mysterious reason, it appears as if the violent nature of the Haymarket Strangler overwhelms Rankin. His left arm restricts into a coiled paralytic state and his face contorts into a disfigured grimace. He then lopes off into the night seemingly unaware of what is happening to him. Now we flash forward to the following day. Rankin appears to be back to normal having suffered no memories of the bizarre transformation that affected him the previous evening. He is careful not to tell McColl about finding the scalpel. Can't say I blame him either. After all, the guy is shtooping his daughter. That evening, Rankin and McColl go to a can-can nightclub to interview a few of the women who were apparent witnesses to the murder of Martha Stewart back in 1860. McColl monkeys around with a dancer named Pearl, while Rankin interviews the choreographer Cora. Cora later goes on to perform a number leaving Rankin to suffer through another transformation. In a scene reminiscent of Phantom of the Opera, the deformed Rankin strangles one of the can-can girls and then bursts out onto the stage. Everything erupts into chaos as the retarded git limps about, but no one seems to recognize that it's Rankin. Later on, Rankin arrives back at his house seemingly none the worse for wear (Again, he has no memories of what happened to him). So now we come to the little twist in this gem. Of course, if you are an experienced movie watcher, you'll find that it's not really much of a twist. Rankin talks to his wife Barbara and we find out a little bit more about their history together. Barbara used to be a nurse who took care of Jimmy during a period of time when he was suffering from amnesia and fainting spells. She married him and had him take her last name (Daughter Lily is Barbara's from a previous marriage and not the biological child of James). James gets it in his head now that not only is he actually the missing Doctor Tennant, but that Tennant is the actual Haymarket Strangler. Styles was in fact innocent as Rankin always claimed. But now Styles' spirit wants revenge for being wrongfully executed. So now whenever Rankin comes into contact with the scalpel, his body suffers the same physical ailments that Styles was afflicted with. The following evening, Rankin turns into the mongoloid again and strangles and stabs his wife. He flees the scene, but is noticed by the maid Hannah. Hannah however, does not recognize the attacker as James Rankin. Convinced that he is the true Haymarket Strangler, Rankin tries to turn himself in for the crime. But Burk won't hear it. Rankin is obviously a 'gentleman' and could never have committed the Strangler's crimes. No matter how hard he tries, he cannot get himself arrested. Finally he attacks a physician who then has him promptly committed. Go figure. Rankin is thrown into a straightjacket and tossed into a padded cell. Fortunately for him, the orderlies never really inspected his body or else they would have found the old bloody scalpel concealed beneath a sleeve. In a scene that would make Harry Houdini envious, Rankin transforms into the notorious ass-face and cuts his way out of the straightjacket. He then starts a fire by breaking the oil-lantern in his cell (Why inmates in a loony-house have lanterns in their cells is beyond me). Anyway, the fire begins engulfing the room earning the attention of the one of the orderlies. The shmuck opens the cell door and Karloff flops himself on the guy slicing his face open with a piece of broken glass from the lantern. He then quickly escapes from the asylum. Rankin then returns to his house where he is prepared to choke the shit out of his daughter Lily (Remember now, this is Styles' ghost controlling Rankin's actions). Rankin's true spirit takes control however, and he manages to stop himself from killing Lily. He then flings himself through a glass window down into the streets below. He runs back toward the graveyard to find the exhumed coffin of Edward Styles (He wants to bury the scalpel). But the "bobbies" catch him just inches away from his goal and blast him through the chest with a shotgun. Kneeling over the dying body, Inspector Burk promises Rankin to bury the scalpel in Styles' grave. Acting/Dialogue: Once again Karloff delivers. Even though he's an overly ripened seventy-one year old here, he still manages to infuse his character with a lot of energy and promise. The only black mark against him is that his lisp becomes overly prominent in this movie and tends to rob him of some intensity in some scenes. What's important to note is that Karloff used little to no makeup for his transformation scenes. He basically just chewed on his lip, scrunched his face up and squinted his eyes. But somehow, it works. As the Strangler, he is completely unrecognizable and extremely disturbing to look at. If you're a Karloff fan, that there is no excuse for not watching this low-key mystery film. The rest of the cast can pretty much go screw. A hodge-podge of no-names who give deadpan performances and seem to be reading their lines from cleverly hidden cue cards. There is absolutely no zip here. But let's be real folks. We don't watch these flicks for the periphery cast of losers right? We're watching it for Karloff. Just keep your eye on the prize and everything will be fine. Gore: There's no gore, but we do get to see a few bleached skeletons here and there. One of the more grisly scenes is when Karloff attacks the orderly. He grips him from behind and then drags a broken piece of glass across the crease of his mouth. Ouch! Although we see nothing of this tosser's death, our imagination lets us fill in the blanks quite nicely. Guilty Pleasures: No nudity of course, but I was quite shocked to see Cora the can-can girl venomously calls someone a "bitch". The Good: This movie is a lot more sophisticated then one would think. There's actually quite a bit going on here. On the surface, it would appear as if the Haunting Strangler is entirely derivative of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde. But this becomes less and less the case, the more one examines the dynamics of Karloff's character. What we have here is not a man battling with his inner nature, but an evil man who has FORGOTTEN his sinister urges and needs to be reminded ala a vengeful spirit. James Rankin is both a victim and a victimizer. He becomes the puppet of the angry Edward Styles, but let's face facts: Styles has a damn good reason to be pissed off! Rankin is the guy who committed the crimes that Styles was hung for. We also sympathize more with Styles as the film unfolds. The only aspect of this guy that lives beyond the grave is his anger and his deformity. Thank god he didn't have any children. Imagine what he would pass on to them. Styles is actually the more tragic character of the plot. Not only is he executed unjustly, but also the only one who seems to give a flip about him is the guy responsible for putting him in the ground. But even his mission of vengeance is a half-hearted one since the new and improved James Rankin has no knowledge or memory of his life prior to meeting his wife Barbara. What a pisser. Now there's something about these Victorian period pieces that I really dig. The combination of fog, cobblestones, gothic archways, gaslights and poor hygiene always make the best combination for an old-school horror film. Many older movies rely on this formula and it works 90% of the time, including here. There are even a few titillating moments where we see the lead actors grouse around a bit with some of those antiquated old world values. The ending while not explosively climatic is nonetheless suitable as we witness a cathartic moment for the James Rankin character. He has not only fully accepted the reality of his psychosis, but likewise musters the inner fortitude to battle past it. He knows that his life is going to end soon, but he valiantly struggles to claw his way through the muck and mire in the grim hopes of ending this possessive evil forever. The Bad: The surprise twist isn't really much of a twist at all. Maybe I've just seen too many movies, but I pretty much guessed that Rankin was Tennant fairly early on. I'm not just trying to inflate my own penis either. I think most people would have made the connection long before its officially revealed in the film. That being said, the first act trails on a bit and we slowly grow impatient waiting for the characters to learn that, which we have known the entire time. Now this movie was made in 1958, but you wouldn't know it. None of the clarity or slickness of the 50s cinema is evident here. If I didn't know any better, I would have sworn this was made no later than 1940. The editing is fairly shoddy, the scene transitions are extremely raw and the entire picture quality is very grainy and washed out. Now for some, this may actually be a plus…as the sub-par picture quality helps lend a more gothic feel to the project. But I'll bet you dollars to donuts this was not intentional. The pacing needs a bit of work too. Like I said, we all pretty much figure out what is going on inside the first fifteen minutes. So we quickly begin squirming in our seats as we watch Karloff muck about with the incidentals. There's this whole business with his daughter wanting to play tongue-tickle Ken McColl's balls. Which would be fine except for the fact that neither of these characters contributes anything to this movie whatsoever. McColl is supposed to be Karloff's go-to guy…but his get up and go has got up and went. His inclusion in this movie seems extremely forced and he really comes off as nothing more than the poor-man's Watson to Karloff's Holmes. Add to that the petty romance which goes nowhere. I would think that an investigator's second-in-command shagging the boss's daughter would make for some interesting story dynamics, but alas, such is not the case. The Haunting Strangler is a better than average horror-mystery, but in the long run, I think it would have faired better with a marginal cast, trimmed running time and sandwiched in as an episode of the Twilight Zone. Great Lines: "I charge you…bury the knife!" -Rankin speaking to Burk as he lies dying. "It belongs here…with me." -Rankin's final words. He's referring to the scalpel again. "I'm going to find that knife and hold it under your nose and make you apologize!" -Rankin getting a little feisty with Inspector Burk in regards to the missing scalpel. Overall Rating: 6 out of 10 severed heads (And for a 50's film that's a high honor indeed!) |
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