Mr. Sardonicus is directed and produced by William Castle and written by Ray Russell. It stars Ronald Lewis, Oskar Homolka, Audrey Dalton, Guy Rolfe, Vladimir Sokoloff and Erika Peters. Music is by Von Dexter and Burnett Guffey is the cinematographer.
Brilliant doctor Sir Robert Cargrave (Lewis) is requested by an old love of his to aid a mysterious masked baron in Gorslava, central Europe. Upon his arrival he finds many strange things, not least the baron himself, who has an unbelievable story to tell. Why the mask? Why are there screams in the night? Will Cargrave ever leave this eerie place alive? Based on a short story called Sardonicus that was originally published in Playboy, Mr. Sardonicus was one of the William Castle films that came with a gimmick. Here we have "The Punishment Poll", an audience participation idea that saw patrons of the cinema asked by an on screen Castle to hold up a card with either a thumbs up or thumbs down, the result of which would determine if the ghoulish Baron Sardonicus in the films finale should suffer more distress, or not? A complete con of course, I mean what self respecting horror fan isn't going to vote for more nasty stuff? In spite of some shifty bluffs to the contrary by Castle, only one ending to the film was ever shot.
As it is, on face value, Mr. Sardonicus is one of William Castle's best movies. A genuinely Gothic flavoured horror harking back to the halcyon days of the Universal shockers of the 30's. True, there's mucho cheese in there, but peel the Edam away and film reveals a tale of torture, greed, sadism, grave robbing and of course facial disfigurement. All set splendidly in some creaky old abode in the belly of Europe. Characters are by the genre numbers; an assistant from the Igor family tree, a pretty damsel in grave danger, a stoic romantic hero type and of course the villain, here played with sly elegance by the tall and straight backed Guy Rolfe. The latter of which had to undergo numerous hours of make up treatment to achieve one of the films best shocks. There's no great depth to it, narratively or structurally, and not utilising the talents of Guffey (The Sniper/Scandal Sheet) to low light the Sardonicus mansion is nearly unforgivable. But it has a wonderful old fashioned horror value to it, some good well worked shriek moments and a fitting finale. A finale worth voting for actually! 7.5/10
Brilliant doctor Sir Robert Cargrave (Lewis) is requested by an old love of his to aid a mysterious masked baron in Gorslava, central Europe. Upon his arrival he finds many strange things, not least the baron himself, who has an unbelievable story to tell. Why the mask? Why are there screams in the night? Will Cargrave ever leave this eerie place alive? Based on a short story called Sardonicus that was originally published in Playboy, Mr. Sardonicus was one of the William Castle films that came with a gimmick. Here we have "The Punishment Poll", an audience participation idea that saw patrons of the cinema asked by an on screen Castle to hold up a card with either a thumbs up or thumbs down, the result of which would determine if the ghoulish Baron Sardonicus in the films finale should suffer more distress, or not? A complete con of course, I mean what self respecting horror fan isn't going to vote for more nasty stuff? In spite of some shifty bluffs to the contrary by Castle, only one ending to the film was ever shot.
As it is, on face value, Mr. Sardonicus is one of William Castle's best movies. A genuinely Gothic flavoured horror harking back to the halcyon days of the Universal shockers of the 30's. True, there's mucho cheese in there, but peel the Edam away and film reveals a tale of torture, greed, sadism, grave robbing and of course facial disfigurement. All set splendidly in some creaky old abode in the belly of Europe. Characters are by the genre numbers; an assistant from the Igor family tree, a pretty damsel in grave danger, a stoic romantic hero type and of course the villain, here played with sly elegance by the tall and straight backed Guy Rolfe. The latter of which had to undergo numerous hours of make up treatment to achieve one of the films best shocks. There's no great depth to it, narratively or structurally, and not utilising the talents of Guffey (The Sniper/Scandal Sheet) to low light the Sardonicus mansion is nearly unforgivable. But it has a wonderful old fashioned horror value to it, some good well worked shriek moments and a fitting finale. A finale worth voting for actually! 7.5/10