Italian gothic horror in the early 1960s was a booming cottage industry: castles, cobwebs, screaming women, and Christopher Lee collecting a paycheck while muttering through heavy makeup. Some of those films—Black Sunday, Castle of Blood—became classics. The Virgin of Nuremberg (La vergine di Norimberga), however, feels less like horror and more like a dreary museum tour where the guide forgot their script.
If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if a Hammer horror film was dropped on its head, left to soak in a puddle of Chianti, and then dressed in a paper-mâché Victorian wig, then congratulations—you’ve already imagined The Hyena of London. Luigi Mangini’s 1964 Italian gothic horror film (working under the very British alias “Henry Wilson,” because “Luigi Mangini’s London” sounds like a Pizza Express franchise) is a masterclass in confusion, convolution, and creative boredom.
This is not so much a horror movie as it is a prolonged costume party gone wrong.
Meet the Mad Doctor… and His Even Madder Logic
The story, and I use that term generously, begins in 1883 London—though it looks suspiciously like 1964 Rome with a pea-soup filter and a few fog machines working overtime. A notorious serial killer, Martin Bauer—dubbed “The Hyena” because apparently “The Serial Strangler of Southwark” didn’t test well with Italian audiences—is hanged for his crimes. But then, in a shocking twist, his body disappears from the grave! And so does the film’s narrative coherence.
Cue a new wave of strangulation murders so predictable that even the fog yawns.
Enter Dr. Edward Dalton, a stern-faced man who looks like he’s late for a Dickensian funeral at all times. He’s concerned about the reappearance of The Hyena, but not so concerned that he stops performing off-screen lobotomies. See, in what may be cinema’s least thought-out science experiment, Dr. Edward stole Bauer’s brain and grafted part of it into his own skull. Because clearly, the best way to understand a killer is to become one—a strategy that works about as well as putting a shark’s tooth in your mouth to understand why it bites.
Needless to say, this backfires faster than a steam-powered curling iron.
Daddy Dearest and His Dumb Decisions
Dr. Edward’s daughter Muriel is sweet, doe-eyed, and in love with Henry Quinn, a Victorian himbo with the charisma of damp toast. Naturally, Edward disapproves. But rather than just banning the romance or posting a stern letter to Henry’s mother, Edward frames him for a series of murders he committed under his own Bauer-fueled psychosis. Cue police incompetence, awkward confrontations, and scenes lit so dimly you’ll wonder if London’s candle tax is still in effect.
If Muriel is the film’s heart, Henry is its appendix—useless, underdeveloped, and prone to being blamed for everything. And then there’s Dr. Anthony Finney, Edward’s alcoholic assistant, who is both in love with Muriel and in constant danger of falling into a vat of his own self-loathing. His main role in the story is to look sweaty and suspicious, like he wandered off the set of a Tennessee Williams play and got stuck in the wrong film reel.
Fog Machines, Stock Music, and the Curse of Riccardo Freda
The visuals try for Gothic grandeur but mostly achieve “over-budget dinner theater.” Cobwebs abound. Hallways stretch into infinity. The fog is so thick it might actually have union representation. And the score? Lifted wholesale from Riccardo Freda’s The Ghost and recycled again in The Third Eye. Listening to it is like déjà vu with violins.
You can practically hear the producer yelling, “Reuse the creepy violin part—it screams ‘London’ even if we filmed this entire scene in a Fiat dealership.”
Dialogue Delivered with the Passion of a Tax Audit
Every conversation in The Hyena of London feels like a poorly translated instruction manual for a haunted espresso machine. The actors deliver their lines like they’ve been hypnotized into forgetting they’re in a movie. Muriel breathes every line like she’s waiting for an asthma inhaler. Henry’s idea of dramatic tension is narrowing his eyes until they disappear. Dr. Edward, bless him, tries to emote—but you can almost see the strain as he fights off a migraine from wearing that ridiculous top hat.
The Shocking Twist (That You’ll Guess 20 Minutes In)
When it’s revealed that Dr. Edward grafted part of a serial killer’s brain into his own head—after we’ve already watched him murder someone and monologue about it—it’s supposed to be a dramatic bombshell. Unfortunately, the twist is telegraphed so hard it might as well be delivered by telegram:
STOP IT’S THE DOCTOR STOP HE HAS THE HYENA BRAIN STOP PLEASE END MOVIE STOP
The final act involves the police chasing Edward through the woods, where he tries to strangle Henry—because apparently the part of Bauer’s brain he inherited was the one that hated men in cravats. The police shoot him, which ends the movie, the mystery, and any remaining viewer patience.
Final Thoughts: The Hyena Has No Teeth
The Hyena of London desperately wants to be Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with a splash of Jack the Ripper and a sprinkle of Frankenstein. What we get instead is Mr. Bean and the Extremely Foggy Plot Twist. It’s a film that lurches from scene to scene like it’s trying to escape its own premise. For horror fans, it’s neither scary nor suspenseful. For comedy fans, it’s accidentally hilarious. For anyone else… well, it’s 78 minutes you could’ve spent reorganizing your sock drawer.
The real horror here isn’t the killings—it’s the editing.
★½ out of ★★★★
Because sometimes, even a brain transplant can’t save a movie from itself.
