Imagine if Scooby-Doo took a wrong turn into a Hammer Horror reject bin, only to be stitched back together by a lobotomized taxidermist with a grudge against coherent storytelling. Welcome to Chamber of Horrors (1966), a film that dares to ask, “What if our villain had a hook hand AND a prosthetic gun arm AND a flamethrower?” and then promptly answers, “Well… he’d still be boring.”
This is the kind of movie where the Fear Flasher and Horror Horn gimmicks are less about thrilling you and more about waking you up every 10 minutes before you pass out from cinematic sedation. Originally shot as a TV pilot, the film was deemed “too intense for television,” which in 1966 apparently meant “features mild neck caressing and red lights.” To extend the runtime, they crammed in Tony Curtis for a two-second cameo and let William Conrad narrate like he was reading a recipe for slow-cooked ham.
Wax, Wigs, and Wasted Potential
Our story follows Jason Cravette (Patrick O’Neal), a Victorian-era maniac who kicks things off by killing a woman and marrying her corpse. Charming! After being sentenced to hang, he escapes custody by hacking off his own hand—and that’s the most convincing thing in the entire movie.
Cravette reemerges in Baltimore with a shiny hook, a thirst for revenge, and a face that looks like it lost a bar fight with a vat of candle wax. He and his unwilling partner Marie (Laura Devon) begin picking off his enemies, with the end goal of assembling a symbolic corpse out of body parts like some murdery Mr. Potato Head. Meanwhile, our supposed heroes, wax museum proprietors Anthony Draco (Cesare Danova) and Harold Blount (Wilfrid Hyde-White), investigate in between sipping brandy, adjusting monocles, and being comically ineffective.
Danova struts around like he’s auditioning for a perfume ad, while Hyde-White delivers each line with the energy of a man who’s late for a nap. At one point, they use a wax dummy of a murder victim to traumatize a suspect into confessing, which would be brilliant if it didn’t feel like the entire film was already made of wax. You could light the entire cast on fire and no one would look more animated.
The Hook-Handed Avenger and Other B-Movie Buffet Leftovers
Cravette is basically what happens when you order Dr. Phibes on Wish. He sports a variety of weaponized prosthetics—hook, gun, flamethrower—all of which sound cool in theory until you realize they’re strapped to a guy who moves with the speed and menace of a Roomba with a limp.
We’re also treated to several riveting scenes of characters talking about things that happened offscreen. Want to see Cravette break into a building? Too bad—you’ll hear about it later from some guy in a turtleneck. Prefer to witness a dramatic murder? Sorry, it’s just a shadow and a horn blaring like a haunted foghorn had a stroke.
The film also can’t decide what tone it’s going for. One minute, we’re knee-deep in gothic melodrama, and the next, there’s a jazzy nightclub interlude that feels like it wandered in from another movie. The whole thing plays like someone edited three different scripts together using garden shears and a bottle of gin.
Final Thoughts: Don’t Lose Your Head—Or 95 Minutes of Your Life
In the end, Chamber of Horrors is a film so caught up in its own gimmicks that it forgets to be scary, suspenseful, or even sensical. The big finale takes place in the wax museum, naturally, where Cravette plans to claim Draco’s head as the final piece of his revenge jigsaw puzzle. Spoiler: he ends up impaled on his own wax figure, which is exactly the kind of poetic justice you’d expect from a movie where half the cast is out-acted by mannequins.
As for the closing twist? Turns out there’s another real body in the wax display. How shocking. Just like the film itself: all style, no substance, and the emotional weight of a melted candle.
Rating: 1.5 out of 5 wax dummies (one of whom may have been the director).
Bring earplugs for the Horror Horn and a stiff drink to forget you ever sat through it.
