The Black Sleep (1956)

With it's list of veteran stars and low-budget setting (mostly taking place in a "castle") this film is a real throw-back to 1930s and 1940s B-movies. However, it isn't quite as much fun as it could have been. Dr Gordon Ramsey - yes really - (Herbert Rudley) is a condemned man in the Tower of London, who can hear the gallows being built. He is visited by Sir Cadman (Basil Rathbone) who gives him a mysterious potion which makes it appear like he has died and escaped the noose...

But really he is alive and now safe in Cadman's castle he learns of bizarre and horrific brain experiments. Cadman is experimenting on unfortunates, learning how to modify their brains. Some of his victims he has turned into horrific monsters, some violent enforcers (Lon Chaney Jr), raving nutcases (John Carradine) or mute servants (Bela Lugosi). Ramsey seeks a way to defeat Cadman, though in the end the biggest danger to the mad scientist comes from his own creations...

It has all the ingredients to be a great film, though can at times be a little slow. Chaney and Lugosi were rather underused in the film, a shame especially for the great Bela Lugosi as this was his last film. The film is well worth watching, just with a degree of regret.