You can learn all kinds of strange “facts” from old horror b-movies. 1943’s The Mad Ghoul, for example, taught me how ancient artists of some primitive culture would draw stink lines to communicate some noxious odor that would knock people out. This “ancient” artwork is closer to early 20th century comic strip art than hieroglyphics.
We see this in a lecture being conducted by George Zucco, where an image of such a work is part of his slide show. Zucco explains these ancients (race and locale unspecified) had created a poison gas with which they made zombies. Given how preposterous that is, I found it only fitting he ends his presentation on a cliffhanger, with him withholding the next key bit of information until the next semester. I knew movie serials were a going concern then, but I didn’t think university lectures were taught in such a manner. He should also have a concession stand in the classroom.
His top student is David Bruce, and the professor invites him to help with his experiments. It turns out he has recreated the zombie potion of the ancients. The crucial ingredient is crystals that are colorless and odorless. Has he been using iocaine powder?
He will turn Bruce into a zombie for his own nefarious purposes. That probably isn’t too different from their relationship already, as I assume he was an unpaid lab assistant. Zucco tests to see if he was successful by bossing the lad around, though I don’t see what that proves, as Bruce was already so compliant.
Bruce can be toggled out of the drone state of mind with some mixture that’s a combination of blood from the heart of somebody recently deceased, also some assorted herbs. I like to think it is the same mix of eleven herbs and spices used by KFC.
It’s weird how Bruce basically ping-pongs back and forth between the undead and living. To use a term I have previously employed, this student’s affliction can be described as “necrolepsy”.
The first heart used to bring him back is from a newly buried corpse in the cemetery, and I was deeply confused as to why they didn’t fill the grave back in when they left. Failure to do so is what puts Robert Amstrong’s newspaper reporter on the case. Then he notices the chain of murders follows the path of the concert stops of vocalist Evelyn Ankers. She is supposed to be Bruce’s fiancée, only she has fallen for her accompanist on the piano (Turhan Bey). Typical of this kind of thing, the actress is only miming to existing recordings of a different artist and, unfortunately, doing a rather poor job of it.
I wouldn’t say I disliked The Mad Ghoul, but there also isn’t much to recommend it. It has some goofiness that wouldn’t have been tolerated for a picture on an “A”-movie budget, but isn’t overall weird enough to be particularly memorable. Much like the purpose it served in its original run, it fills 65 minutes sufficiently but not exceptionally.
Dir: James P. Hogan
Starring David Bruce, Evelyn Ankers, George Zuccor
Watched as part of Shout Factory’s blu-ray box set Universal Horror Collection Volume 2