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An incredible film! Wegener plays a mad scientist who murders his wife when her black cat knocks over a piece of strange equipment in his dungeon laboratory, and like a true mad doctor he walls her up in the basement. After fleeing from the police, a determined reporter sets out to track him down. Wegener escapes from the authorities in a truly novel way-first he hides out in a bizarre House of Horrors wax museum, then he feigns insanity and is sent to an asylum. The reporter traces him to the asylum, but he soon shivers with horror when he discovers the inmates have taken over! Watch for the nail-biting dinner scene where the lunatics slowly encircle the reporter, intent on bringing his life to a ghastly end. Wegener soon flees from the asylum. He eventually ends up as the leader of a bizarre suicide club. The scene where Wegener locks the reporter into a special torture chair in front of the giant death clock is a high moment in the film. The black and white cinematography is to die for. Based on stories by Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Lewis Stevenson. Considered a masterpiece.