"Ladies and gentlemen, the motion picture you are about to see contains scenes so terrifying the public must be given grave warning. Therefore, the management has instituted visual and audible warning at the beginning of each of the four supreme Fright Points. The Fear Flasher is the visual warning. The Horror Horn is the audible warning. Turn away when you hear the Fear Flasher! Close your eyes when you hear the Horror Horn!"
Chamber of Horrors was originally intended to be a made-for-TV movie and a pilot for a series that would be known as House of Wax. It was way too intense for that, so it came to theaters. It was pretty short - it's only 99 minutes with padding - so they added two gimmicks: the Fear Flasher turns the screen red when something scary happens and the Horror Horn makes plenty of noise when something gory is about to befall a character.
This was directed by Hy Averback, who directed and produced plenty of TV as well as directing the movies Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?, I Love You, Alice B. Toklas and The Story of Life, a 62-minute sex educational film with animation by several former Disney cartoonists. He was also the voice of the loudspeaker on M*A*S*H*. It was written by Stephen Kandel, who in addition to writing tons of TV scripts, also wrote Winchester 73. Seriously, his TV credits hit every major show of the 70s.
Anthony Draco (Cesare Danova) and Harold Blount (Wilfrid Hyde-White) own a wax museum in Baltimore and have a side hustle as detectives. They join the police - including Wayne Rogers as Sgt. Albertson - in the hunt for Jason Cravette (Patrick O'Neal), a man who kills women and then marries her, which doesn't seem like the normal way these things go. After being caught and sent via train to prison, he escapes by cutting off his own hand and running off to New Orleans, now with a hook where he once had fingers.
He finds a sex worker named Marie Champlain (Laura Devon) and transforms her into a lady - ironic, as Hyde-White played Colonel Pickering in My Fair Lady - and takes her back to Baltimore to seduce and murder the man who convicted him, Judge Walter Randolph (Vinton Hayworth). He chops off the dead man's hands and head so the police can't figure out who did the crime. He follows that by killing Dr. Romulus Cobb (Richard O'Brien) and sending that man's hands to the police to taunt them.
Draco and Blount believe that the mysterious murderer is Cravette and that he's sending a full corpse to the police piece-by-piece, with the arms and head still missing. After he kills a police officer for the hands, Draco realizes that the head the killer wants will be his.
There's a tease for the next episode, as a body in the iron maiden in the museum turns out to be real. The detectives call the police and, well, that's the end of their adventures.
Seeing as how this was supposed to be a House of Wax series, the sets from the original film are used in this movie. Tony Curtis also appears in a cameo and the story is narrated by William Conrad.
Chamber of Horrors was originally intended to be a made-for-TV movie and a pilot for a series that would be known as House of Wax. It was way too intense for that, so it came to theaters. It was pretty short - it's only 99 minutes with padding - so they added two gimmicks: the Fear Flasher turns the screen red when something scary happens and the Horror Horn makes plenty of noise when something gory is about to befall a character.
This was directed by Hy Averback, who directed and produced plenty of TV as well as directing the movies Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?, I Love You, Alice B. Toklas and The Story of Life, a 62-minute sex educational film with animation by several former Disney cartoonists. He was also the voice of the loudspeaker on M*A*S*H*. It was written by Stephen Kandel, who in addition to writing tons of TV scripts, also wrote Winchester 73. Seriously, his TV credits hit every major show of the 70s.
Anthony Draco (Cesare Danova) and Harold Blount (Wilfrid Hyde-White) own a wax museum in Baltimore and have a side hustle as detectives. They join the police - including Wayne Rogers as Sgt. Albertson - in the hunt for Jason Cravette (Patrick O'Neal), a man who kills women and then marries her, which doesn't seem like the normal way these things go. After being caught and sent via train to prison, he escapes by cutting off his own hand and running off to New Orleans, now with a hook where he once had fingers.
He finds a sex worker named Marie Champlain (Laura Devon) and transforms her into a lady - ironic, as Hyde-White played Colonel Pickering in My Fair Lady - and takes her back to Baltimore to seduce and murder the man who convicted him, Judge Walter Randolph (Vinton Hayworth). He chops off the dead man's hands and head so the police can't figure out who did the crime. He follows that by killing Dr. Romulus Cobb (Richard O'Brien) and sending that man's hands to the police to taunt them.
Draco and Blount believe that the mysterious murderer is Cravette and that he's sending a full corpse to the police piece-by-piece, with the arms and head still missing. After he kills a police officer for the hands, Draco realizes that the head the killer wants will be his.
There's a tease for the next episode, as a body in the iron maiden in the museum turns out to be real. The detectives call the police and, well, that's the end of their adventures.
Seeing as how this was supposed to be a House of Wax series, the sets from the original film are used in this movie. Tony Curtis also appears in a cameo and the story is narrated by William Conrad.