Night Monster

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Night Monster is a 1942 American black-and-white horror film produced and distributed by Universal Pictures Company. It was an original story and screenplay by Clarence Upson Young, produced and directed by Ford Beebe. For publicity value, star billing was given to Bela Lugosi and Lionel Atwill, but the lead roles were played by Ralph Morgan, Irene Hervey and Don Porter, with Atwill actually in a character role as a pompous doctor who becomes a victim to the title character, and Lugosi in a small part as a butler who simply disappears from the script about halfway through the film.

[edit] Synopsis

In a small Southern town bordering a swampy region, unexplained murders and rumors of mysterious happenings surround the swamp-based home of the reclusive but respected Curt Ingston (Morgan). Ingston is confined to a wheelchair, and has invited to his home the three doctors who were trying to cure him when his paralysis set in. Already in the household are his grim-humored butler Rolf; a lecherous chauffeur, Lawrie; a mannish housekeeper, Miss Judd; an Eastern mystic, Agar Singh; and Ingston's allegedly mentally-ill sister, Margaret. Outside, the gate is watched by a shrivelled old hunchback called Torque.

Coincident with the arrival of the three male physicians is the appearance of a woman psychiatrist, Dr. Lynn Harper, summoned secretly by Margaret to prove she is not insane and help her secure freedom from the control of Ingstrom and Miss Judd. She arrives accompanied by neighbor mystery-writer Dick Baldwin, who has rescued her after her car's broken down in the swamp. Neither Ingstrom nor Miss Judd welcome her presence, but must contend with keeping her over night until her car can be fixed.

Following dinner, at which Ingstrom's conviction that the three doctors are directly responsible for his current condition, the party witness an exhibition of materialization of an Egyptian skeleton by Agar Singh. Dr. Harper is forbidden to meet with Margaret. Then, one by one, the doctors are frightfully killed as they prepare for bed. Suspecting Ingston, Dick and police Captain Beggs confront him in his room, but discover he is actually not paralyzed but a quadruple amputee. Suspicion then falls on Lawrie, who was last seen driving a murdered ex-employee of the household back to town; but he too winds up dead.

In the climax, Dick confronts the killer outside the estate as he menaces Lynn, and discovers it is Ingston after all: by studying under Agar Singh, he has learned how to materialize arms and legs, hands and feet for himself, long enough to accomplish his evil deeds. As Dick struggles with him to the death, Margaret sets fire to the unholy house, committing suicide while taking the malevolent Miss Judd to the grave with her. As the house burns to the ground, Dick and Lynn are saved by Agar Singh, when Singh shoots Ingston. Only Captain Beggs escaped the burning household.

[edit] Cast

[edit] External links

• Night Monster at the Internet Movie Database
• Night Monster at Allmovie
• Night Monster at Rotten Tomatoes