Mr. Sardonicus is set during 1880 & starts in London where Sir Robert Cargrave (Ronald Lewis) is a successful surgeon specialising in the field of paralysis, one morning Cargrave receives a letter written by his former lover Maude Randall (Audrey Dalton) who urges him to come to the European town of Gorslava in a matter of utmost importance. Cragrave leaves for Gorslava almost immediately & travels to the Castle of Maude's husband, the Baron Sardonicus (Guy Rolfe) who wears a mask that covers his entire face. Eventually Baron Sardonicus reveals his face to Cargrave who is shocked to see that he has a permanent horrifying grin because of paralysed facial muscles, Baron Sardonicus begs Cargrave to help cure him but when conventional massaging techniques fail to work Baron Sardonicus threatens the life of Maude if Cargrave does not use new experimental drugs on him & cure his horrible disfigurement...
Also known simply as Sardonicus this atmospheric black and white Gothic horror film was produced & directed by William Castle & was based on the short story 'Sardonicus' by Ray Russell that originally appeared in a 1961 edition of Playboy who also wrote the screenplay here & despite the IMDb describing it as a novel Russell's original story was a mere thirty odd pages long, I know because I only read it last week (those in the UK it's one of the stories in the Pan Book of Horror Stories Volume 4) & it was that reading which made me want to find & watch this film & I am glad I did because Mr. Sardonicus is a fine film in it's own right & better than I expected. There are obvious differences like the addition of the maid & her torture, Sardonicus keeping a corpse in a locked room, the nature of Maude's punishment is different as in the film Sardonicus threatens to cut her face muscles leaving her with a horrible disfigurement while in the original written story he threatens to have forcible sex with her every night despite his hideous appearance, the lack of any mirrors is new to the film, the back-story about the lottery ticket is slightly different as Sardonicus was never previously married & he does not wear a mask at any point in the story but I suppose that works quite well in the film as his unmasking & the revealing of his true appearance is nicely built-up & pretty effective. The changes, however, are not massive & the main bulk of the story remains intact. Mr. Sardonicus is am atmospheric horror thriller that has a certain amount of originality about it, I can't remember seeing a film with a similar story that balances Gothic & psychological horror like it, at 90 minutes long Mr. Sardonicus feels shorter & the time I spent watching it flew by. The character's are good & well rounded, everything makes sense to a degree & the script just about manages to make it's audience both sympathise & despise Sardonicus.
Filmed in black and white this works for Mr. Sardonicus really well with the dark dungeons, the isolated forest & it manages to hide some of the production's shortcomings. When revealed Sardonicus has a huge unnatural grin that isn't exactly scary but I don't think anyone would like to walk around permanently with it on their face so it has a certain effectiveness. The one aspect that Mr. Sardonicus could have done without is the William Castle introduction (he quotes some of the book, especially while trying to find Ghoul in the dictionary) & the silly Punishment Poll which was never a poll anyway as only one ending was ever filmed. The film would have worked fine without these unnecessary interruptions.
The production values are good & Mr. Sardonicus is well made for the period, the acting is good & Guy Rolfe does a decent job considering he is stuck behind a mask for most of the film & I am sure he was cast because of his distinctive voice which sells the part.
Mr. Sardonicus is a good film that was better than I was expecting, the short story is also pretty good & can recommend that. The William Castle bits are unnecessary but otherwise I was impressed.
Also known simply as Sardonicus this atmospheric black and white Gothic horror film was produced & directed by William Castle & was based on the short story 'Sardonicus' by Ray Russell that originally appeared in a 1961 edition of Playboy who also wrote the screenplay here & despite the IMDb describing it as a novel Russell's original story was a mere thirty odd pages long, I know because I only read it last week (those in the UK it's one of the stories in the Pan Book of Horror Stories Volume 4) & it was that reading which made me want to find & watch this film & I am glad I did because Mr. Sardonicus is a fine film in it's own right & better than I expected. There are obvious differences like the addition of the maid & her torture, Sardonicus keeping a corpse in a locked room, the nature of Maude's punishment is different as in the film Sardonicus threatens to cut her face muscles leaving her with a horrible disfigurement while in the original written story he threatens to have forcible sex with her every night despite his hideous appearance, the lack of any mirrors is new to the film, the back-story about the lottery ticket is slightly different as Sardonicus was never previously married & he does not wear a mask at any point in the story but I suppose that works quite well in the film as his unmasking & the revealing of his true appearance is nicely built-up & pretty effective. The changes, however, are not massive & the main bulk of the story remains intact. Mr. Sardonicus is am atmospheric horror thriller that has a certain amount of originality about it, I can't remember seeing a film with a similar story that balances Gothic & psychological horror like it, at 90 minutes long Mr. Sardonicus feels shorter & the time I spent watching it flew by. The character's are good & well rounded, everything makes sense to a degree & the script just about manages to make it's audience both sympathise & despise Sardonicus.
Filmed in black and white this works for Mr. Sardonicus really well with the dark dungeons, the isolated forest & it manages to hide some of the production's shortcomings. When revealed Sardonicus has a huge unnatural grin that isn't exactly scary but I don't think anyone would like to walk around permanently with it on their face so it has a certain effectiveness. The one aspect that Mr. Sardonicus could have done without is the William Castle introduction (he quotes some of the book, especially while trying to find Ghoul in the dictionary) & the silly Punishment Poll which was never a poll anyway as only one ending was ever filmed. The film would have worked fine without these unnecessary interruptions.
The production values are good & Mr. Sardonicus is well made for the period, the acting is good & Guy Rolfe does a decent job considering he is stuck behind a mask for most of the film & I am sure he was cast because of his distinctive voice which sells the part.
Mr. Sardonicus is a good film that was better than I was expecting, the short story is also pretty good & can recommend that. The William Castle bits are unnecessary but otherwise I was impressed.