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Late 19th Century, London: A serialkiller dubbed The Hyena of London
is executed, to everybody's relief. A few months later though, a girl is
killed in a small village near London in exactly the fashion the Hyena
killed his victims. Her husband, a known drunkard, is arrested for the
crime, and he hangs himself a few days later in his cell - but nobody
really believes he did it. A few days later, another dead girl is found,
by none other than Muriel (Diana Martin), the daughter of the local doctor
and coroner Dalton (Bernard Price). There's plenty going on in Dr
Dalton's house, even without the murders. Muriel is in love with Henry
(Tony Kendall), an unemployed playboy who her father doesn't approve of.
Doc Dalton's assistant Dr Finney (James Harrison) on the other hand is in
love with Muriel, but he is also a drunkard who seems to have a sinister
agenda. Dalton's servant Chris (John Mathews) steals quite a lump of money
from him and also has an affair with his maid Margie (Denise Clar), who is
married to another man. And when Henry tries to sneak into the house to
secretly talk to Muriel, Chris seizes the opportunity to accuse him of
breaking in and stealing the money. Henry is arrested, and since he is
also a gentleman, he won't spill the beans on his affair with Muriel to
save his own neck to avoid a scandal. He rather breaks out of prison. At
the same time though, the killer has struck again, a little girl in the
village, and his trail leads to the Dalton home - where the police finds
most everyone dead, and the doctor and Muriel missing. Actually, the
doctor drags Muriel to ... well, to somewhere, and then prepares to kill
her in the forest - when Henry intervenes and the two men get into a
fight, which is only ended when the police shoots doctor Dalton. But how
come the doctor ...? You see, he wanted to find a cure from criminal
insanity, but to find it, he had to produce a serum out of the brain (?)
of the Hyena of London to render himself criminally insane ... and that
went a bit out of hand, so instead of finding a cure, the doctor became a
serialkiller in the Hyena's tradition. A rather disappointing
little period thriller that, judging from the plot, could have been a nice
gothic with shades of Jekyll
and Hyde - but instead it became a tedious soap opera with a
few murders thrown in for no real reason, a film that does its best to
divert from its murder mystery ingredients and that shies away from
creating something remotely resembling atmosphere for vast stretches of
time. To sum it up in one word: A disappointment!
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