- Director: Ford Beebe
- Writer: Clarence Upson Young
- Stars: Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill, Leif Erickson
- Run time: 1 Hour, 13 Minutes
- Amazon Link: https://amzn.to/2MZwbPF
Synopsis
Margaret Ingston yells at the maid for cleaning up a blood spot on the stairs, but there can’t be blood there. She accuses the maid of making her think that she’s insane. No so sure of herself, she’s already sent to the city for a psychiatrist. The maid freaks out, and insists that Margaret cancel the car, as Laurie, the chauffeur, is going to meet Mr. Ingston’s own doctors at the train. The maid then orders Margaret to go to her room. Who’s in charge here?
Millie, a different maid, calls the police, but Rolf the butler hangs up the phone. She quits and heads to town with Laurie. He grabs her, but she runs off and gets a ride elsewhere. Laurie goes to the train station and picks up Drs. King, Phipps, and Timmons. Millie talks to the police, but he can’t do anything without evidence. Still, there have been murders nearby.
Dr. Harper hears a scream on the road, which we see is Millie, who has run into trouble. Dr. Harper meets up with Dick, a horror writer, and they head to the house as well. Dr. Harper notices there are bars on her bedroom window.
The three doctors regret their failure, which left Ingston an invalid. They performed some kind of surgery on him that went badly. Ingston explains that he’s going to reward the three in the manner they deserve. He’s even got artificial limbs that he’s had someone build for him. He’s been researching regeneration of missing limbs. He’s learned it from Mr. Singh, his not-really-but-let’s-pretend-Indian mentalist/Yogi.
Singh says he can control things with his mind. He demonstrates by making a skeleton appear, and it’s holding a box that drips with blood. Inside the box is a blood ruby inscribed with a death curse. Singh passes out, and both the skeleton and ruby vanish.
The constable finds Millie’s body and follows footprints to the Ingston’s house. Margaret talks to Dr. Harper, explaining that she’s seen scary things in the backyard as well as blood stains on the carpet. The thing outside had a distorted face and… then Laurie comes in and orders Margaret to bed.
The constable comes in and wants to measure everyone’s feet to match to the footprint he found. He calls for all the men in the hose to assemble. Rolf the butler finds Dr. King, dead on his bedroom floor. He was strangled, but there’s a trail of blood that goes out the door. There’s much talk about the curse from the ruby.
The next morning, they find Dr. Timmons dead as well. The constable wants to arrest Singh, but he doesn’t have any proof. Singh thinks he knows who the murderer is. Margaret accuses Ingston, saying he’s gone insane after becoming crippled. About this time, Dr. Phipps is killed as well. There’s another trail of blood that leads to a wall… with a secret door.
Dick and the constable then accuse Ingston, who shows them that he he has no arms or legs, so he obviously couldn’t have done it. They find Laurie’s body next. Margaret helps Dick and Dr. Harper to escape, and then she sets the house on fire… with her and the maid locked in the burning room.
Dick and Harper run through the woods, chased by some lumbering creature that turns out to be Ingston after all. Ingston attacks Dick, but before he can get to Harper, he is shot by Singh. Singh and the constable find Ingston with newly-regrown legs, materialized just like Singh’s skeleton.
Commentary
The cast starts out large, but there are still enough people alive at the end to make it not entirely clear who the murderer was until the final reveal. It seemed likely that it was Ingston was going the murders all along, but the method was too silly to guess. Also, Ingston sort of had a reason to kill the three doctors, but why did he kill Laurie and Millie?
The two big-name stars, Lugosi and Atwill, don’t have much to do here. Atwill was the first to die after giving only one short speech, and Lugosi was the butler, who just sort of disappears partway through the film.