FilmNRSci-Fi Horror Gothic Classic Monsters

The Black Sleep1956

Name: The Black Sleep
Genre: Sci-Fi Horror, Gothic, Classic Monsters, Body Horror
Released: 1956-06-15
Rating: 6.1

“The Terror Drug That Wakes the Dead!”

Directed by Reginald Le Borg

6.1

Crypt Score

Blended from 2 sources

IMDb 6.0TMDB 6.2

✍ Review

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Year

1956

Runtime

82 min

Box Office

Budget

$225,000

The premise

In 19th century England, a noted brain surgeon rescues a former student from being hanged on a false conviction for murder, and spirits him away to an ancient, repurposed abbey far in the countryside. There, he connives his pupil into assisting him in mapping the functions of the various parts of the human brain, using living subjects who are under a terrible animation-suspending drug called "black sleep". Subsequently, the student, along with the daughter of one of the subjects, discover that most of these subjects have survived but are being kept in a dungeon-like cellar, in various stages of physical and mental derangement...

Horror Vault's take

In Victorian England, a brilliant but morally unmoored brain surgeon uses a powerful suspended-animation drug to conduct forbidden experiments on unwitting human subjects — all within the grim walls of a remote abbey. A young doctor, indebted to the surgeon for saving his life, finds himself drawn deeper into a conspiracy he cannot easily escape. What lurks beneath the abbey is far worse than anything his benefactor has admitted to, and the truth proves impossible to ignore. The film doubles as a showcase for a remarkable assembly of golden-age horror icons, lending it an eerie grandeur that elevates it well beyond a typical B-picture.

Content: Depictions Of Human Experimentation, Disturbing Imagery Of Physical And Mental Derangement, Period-Era Surgical Themes