Classic Horrors Club

Chamber of Horrors (1966) was intended as a pilot for a series, but was too “intense” for television, so additional footage was added and it was released as a theatrical motion picture. Neither these circumstances, nor the movie itself, is as strange as what the series might have been: a period detective program based on House of Wax (1953.) We’ve seen some unusual concepts, but two men who run a wax museum by day and practice amateur sleuthing by night, might be one of the strangest. 

Except for the ending in which a dead body unexpectedly appears after the primary mystery has been solved, nothing about Chamber of Horrors resembles a television series, least of all its production values. In fact, if you consider the timing, the two gimmicks (the Fear Flasher and the Horror Horn) and the pop art opening credits sequence are more reminiscent of theatrical horror trends from a William Castle or Corman/Poe film. It seems less like an attempt to capitalize on a 13-year old film than it does movies from its own time.

As Anthony Draco (Cesare Dana) and Harold Blount (Wilfrid Hyde-White) open the doors to their House of Wax, Jason Cravattte (Patrick O’Neal) has forced at gunpoint a clergyman to marry him to a dead woman. Though the victim is discovered, the perpetrator isn’t… until Mrs. Perryman (Jeanette Nolan) asks Draco and Blount to find her murderous nephew. (She didn’t report him to the police because of the embarrassment it would cause her.) Interestingly, Draco and Blount go directly to the police station where…

Inspector Matthew Strudwick (Philip Bourneuf) is at first a little miffed that Mrs. Perryman didn’t come to him to crack the case, but tells Draco and Blount, “I suppose it will do no harm to let you try your hand at it.” They do, and before their wax figure of Cravatte can even dry, they’ve led to his apprehension. Sergeant Jim Albertson (Wayne Rogers) makes the arrest, Medical Examiner Romulus Cobb (Richard O’Brien) testifies, and Judge Walter Randolph (Vinton Hayworth) convicts. 

After a daring escape that’s the highlight of the movie, Jason Cravatte returns to Baltimore as Jason Caroll to get his revenge. He brings with him, by way of New Orleans, Marie Champlain (Laura Devon), a beautiful lady of the night that reluctantly becomes his accomplice (later feigning ignorance about what he’s been doing with all the deadly accessories that snap onto where his hand used to be.) “Intense,” I don’t know, but it’s definitely sordid and the only thing separating it from a bloody Eurohorror is a noticeable lack of blood.

This is even when the Fear Flasher turns the screen red and the Horror Horn snaps us out of our dozing. If you think about it, these aren’t the most creative gimmicks. First, if you warn the audience when something bad is going to happen, there won’t be any surprises. Second, since we’re told at the beginning that the gimmicks will be used four times,  and the fourth one occurs well before the climax, you have nothing to anticipate. In trying to make the movie more shocking, they actually made it more insignificant.

In any case, when you’ve got a serial killer that can turn his arm into the deadly weapon of his choosing, my favorite being a meat cleaver, you need to see it in action. Without this repeated disappointment, Chamber of Horrors offers an entertaining plot and story with likable characters played by likable actors. Well, Cravatte/Caroll isn’t likable, but O’Neal is the perfect man to play him. Come to think of it, a good television series may have come from this… today, not in 1966.