[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)

A carnival sideshow entertainer / mad scientist (Bela Lugosi) scours Paris for a bride for his pet gorilla. Blurring the theories of evolution he injects his female victims with blood from the gorilla then discards their ravaged bodies through a trap door in his lab. He finally finds the perfect mate (Sidney Fox)for his hairy pet, resulting in a race against time as her fiance (Leon Waycoff) attempts to save her.

Whilst obviously not top drawer Universal horror the film is still a serviceable vehicle for Lugosi allowing him to carry off his Dracula persona but this time in an Edgar Allan Poe story whilst the top billed Sidney Fox provides us with a sweet and charming heroine.

Universal have done a lovely job with their set design creating a marvelously Gothic Paris and it more often feels like silent German Expressionist cinema rather than full blown Universal horror even though they were no doubt using their famous backlot streets as they did in many films at the time. The dry ice machine operators must have been on overtime as some of the outdoors scenes are so shrouded in fog you can barely make out the performers which isn't entirely a bad thing when you see the man in a suit gorilla costume bounding across the rooftops.