Borgo Pass Horror Podcast

Dr. Ernest Sovac is taken from his cell for his execution, but is able to give notes to a reporter, which recount his story, as he is led to a chamber.

Sometime earlier, Sovac's best friend, bookish college professor George Kingsley, is run down while crossing a street. In order to save his friend's life, Sovac implants part of another man's brain into the professor's. Unfortunately, the other man was a gangster who was involved in the accident and was apparently heading for the electric chair, according to the police. The professor recovers but at times behaves like the gangster. Sovac is horrified but also intrigued, because the gangster has hidden $500,000 somewhere in New York City. The doctor continues to treat his unwitting friend and persuades him to take a vacation in New York; Sovac hopes this will revive the gangster's memory so that Kingsley will lead him to the fortune which he hopes to spend on a laboratory. Unfortunately, for the doctor's plans, the professor's personality change becomes more extreme, including plotting revenge against other members of his former gang. When Kingsley (behaving as a gangster) attempts to murder the doctor's daughter, Sovac shoots him dead.

Returning to present, Sovac is executed.

Sir Karell Borotyn (Holmes Herbert) is found murdered in his house, with two tiny pinpoint wounds on his neck. The attending doctor, Dr. Doskil (Donald Meek), and Sir Karell's friend Baron Otto von Zinden (Jean Hersholt) are convinced that he was killed by a vampire. They suspect Count Mora (Bela Lugosi) and his daughter Luna (Carroll Borland), while the Prague Police Inspector Neumann (Lionel Atwill) refuses to believe them.

Sir Karell's daughter Irena (Elizabeth Allan) is the Count's next target. Professor Zelen (Lionel Barrymore), an expert on vampires and the occult, arrives in order to prevent her death. After Irena is menaced by the vampires on several occasions, Zelen, Baron Otto, and Inspector Neumann descend into the ruined parts of the castle to hunt down the undead monsters and destroy them. When Zelen and Baron Otto find themselves alone, however, Zelen hypnotizes the Baron and asks him to relive the night of Sir Karell's murder. It is then revealed that the "vampires" are actually hired actors, and that the entire experience has been an elaborate charade concocted by Zelen in the hopes of tricking the real murderer—Baron Otto—into confessing to the crime. Acknowledging that the charade has failed to produce its intended results, Zelen, along with Irena and another actor who strongly resembles Sir Karell, compels the hypnotized Baron into re-enacting the murder, effectively proving his guilt. During the re-enactment, Baron Otto reveals his true motive: he wished to marry Irena, but her father would not allow it. He also reveals how he staged the murder to resemble a vampire attack.

With Baron Otto arrested, Irena explains the plot to her fiance, Fedor (Henry Wadsworth), who was not involved in the subterfuge and believed that the vampires were real. The film ends with the actors who played the vampires packing up their supplies, and "Count Mora" exclaiming, "This vampire business, it has given me a great idea for a new act! Luna, in the new act, I will be the vampire! Did you watch me? I gave all of me! I was greater than any REAL vampire!" which is met with general lack of enthusiasm by his fellow thespians.

A rash of horrific murders has terrorized London and baffled police. Newspaper reporter Bruce Adams finds one murder victim, a prominent doctor, while returning home from a pub. The next day, two American policemen, Slim and Tubby, who are studying London police methods, respond to brawl at a women's suffrage rally in Hyde Park. Reporter Adams, young suffragette Vicky Edwards, Slim, and Tubby are all caught up in the fray and wind up in jail. Vicky's guardian, Dr. Henry Jekyll, bails Vicky and Adams out, while Tubby and Slim are kicked off the police force. Unknown to anyone, however, Dr. Jekyll has developed an injectable serum which transforms him into Mr. Hyde -- the "monster" responsible for the recent murders. Dr. Jekyll, who is secretly in love with Vicky, notices Vicky's and Bruce's mutual attraction. He injects himself to transform once again into Hyde with the intent of murdering Adams.

Meanwhile, Tubby and Slim realize that they must capture the monster in order to be reinstated on the police force. Walking down a street at night, Tubby spots Hyde (whom Slim at first mistakes for a burglar) and the boys trail him into a music hall where Vicky is performing and Adams is visiting. A chase ensues, and Tubby manages to trap Hyde inside a cell in a wax museum. However, by the time Tubby brings the police inspector, Adams and Slim to the scene, the monster has reverted to the respected Dr. Jekyll, and Tubby is once again rebuked by the police inspector. The "good" doctor, however, asks Slim and Tubby to escort him to his home. Once at Jekyll's home, Tubby and Slim snoop around and Tubby drinks a potion which transforms him into a large mouse. Slim and Tubby bring this news to the inspector, but the inspector refuses to believe them.

Later, Vicky announces to Jekyll her intent to marry Adams, but Jekyll does not share her enthusiasm and transforms into Hyde right in front of her and attacks her. Adams, Slim and Tubby save her in the nick of time, but Hyde escapes. During the struggle, Jekyll's serum needle falls into a couch cushion, which Tubby accidentally falls onto, transforming him into a Hyde-like monster. Another madcap chase ensues, this time with Adams chasing Jekyll's monster and Slim pursuing Tubby's monster, since both believe they are after Jekyll. The police are frustrated and confused by reports of the monster seemingly being in multiple places at once.

Adams' chase ends up back at Jekyll's home, where Hyde falls from an upstairs window to his death, then transforms to his true identity. Meanwhile, Slim brings Tubby, who is still in monster form, to the inspector's office. Tubby bites the inspector and four officers, then reverts to his true self. Before Slim and Tubby can be reprimanded, the inspector and the officers transform into monsters. Slim and Tubby dash through a wall and out of police headquarters.

Sir Denis Nayland Smith (Lewis Stone) of the British Secret Service warns Egyptologist Sir Lionel Barton (Lawrence Grant) that he must beat Fu Manchu in the race to find the tomb of Genghis Khan. The power-mad Fu Manchu (Boris Karloff) intends to use the sword and mask to proclaim himself the reincarnation of the legendary conqueror and inflame the peoples of Asia and the Middle East into a war to wipe out the "white race". Sir Lionel is kidnapped soon afterward and taken to Fu Manchu. Fu Manchu tries bribing his captive, even offering his own daughter, Fah Lo See (Myrna Loy). When that fails, Barton suffers the "torture of the bell" (lying underneath a gigantic, constantly ringing bell) in an unsuccessful attempt to get him to reveal the location of the tomb.

Barton's daughter Sheila (Karen Morley) insists on taking her father's place on the expedition, as she knows where the tomb is. She finds the tomb and its treasures with the help of her fiance Terrence "Terry" Granville (Charles Starrett), Von Berg (Jean Hersholt), and McLeod (David Torrence). Nayland Smith joins them soon afterward.

McLeod is killed by one of Fu Manchu's men during a robbery attempt, after McLeod kills one of Fu Manchu's men. When that fails, an emissary offers to trade Barton for the priceless artifacts. Despite Terry's misgivings, Sheila persuades him to take the relics to Fu Manchu without Smith's knowledge. However, when Fu Manchu tests the sword, he determines that it is a fake (Nayland had switched them). Terry is whipped under the supervision of Fah Lo See, who is attracted to him. Meanwhile, Fu Manchu has Barton's corpse delivered to Sheila. When Nayland tries to rescue Terry, he is taken captive as well.

Terry is injected with a serum that makes him temporarily obedient to Fu Manchu and released. He tells Sheila and Von Berg that Nayland Smith wants them to bring the sword and mask to him. Sheila senses something is wrong, but Von Berg digs up the real relics, and they follow Terry into a trap.

Captured by Fu Manchu, the party is sentenced to death or enslavement, but not before Sheila manages to bring Terry back to his senses. Sheila is to become a human sacrifice, Nayland Smith is to be lowered into a crocodile pit, and Von Berg placed between two sets of metal spikes inching toward each other. Terry is prepared for another dose of the serum, which will make him a permanent slave of the whims of Fu Manchu's daughter.

However, Nayland Smith manages to free himself, Terry, and Von Berg. Using one of Fu Manchu's own weapons—a death ray that shoots an electric current—the men incapacitate the arch-villain as he raises the sword to execute Sheila.

When Fu Manchu drops the sword, Terry picks it up and hacks him to death. While Terry frees Sheila and carries her away, Nayland Smith and Von Berg incinerate Fu Manchu's followers using the same weapon. Safely aboard a ship bound for England, Nayland Smith tosses the sword over the side so that the world will be safe from any future Fu Manchu.

In London at the beginning of the twentieth century, Phyllis Allenby is a young and beautiful woman who is soon to be married to barrister and boyfriend Barry Lanfield. Phyllis is living at the Allenby Mansion without the protection of a male, along with her aunt Martha and her cousin Carol and the servant Hannah. As the wedding date approaches, London is shocked by a series of murders at the local park, where the victims are discovered with throats ripped out. Many of the detectives at Scotland Yard begin murmuring about werewolves, while Inspector Pierce believes the opposite and suspects strange activity at the Allenby Mansion (which is near the park), where the "Wolf-Woman" is seen prowling at night and heading for the park.

Phyllis becomes extremely terrified and anxious, since she is convinced that she is the "Wolf-Woman", deeply believing in the legend of the so-called "Curse of the Allenbys". Aunt Martha tries to convince Phyllis how ridiculous the legend sounds, while she (Aunt Martha) and Carol are suspicious in their own ways. Phyllis each day denies Barry visiting her, and when a suspicious detective is murdered soon after he visits the mansion in the same way the other victims perished, Barry begins believing that something else is going on beside the so-called "Werewolf murders", and makes his own investigations both of the park and the mansion. It turns out that Aunt Martha did the attacks to convince Phyllis she was insane, and belonged in an asylum rather than married to Barry, so Martha and her daughter could remain living in the mansion.

A visionary astronomer, Dr. Janos Rukh, has invented a telescope that can look far out into deep space, into the Andromeda Galaxy, and photograph light rays that will show the Earth's past. He has theorized about this being possible for some years, much to his discredit among his fellow scientist-colleagues. Looking at the remote past on a planetarium-like dome in his lab, two of those ardently skeptical scientists, Dr. Benet and Sir Francis Stevens, watch a large meteorite smash into the Earth a billion years ago, in what is now the continent of Africa. Amazed by Rukh's demonstration, the pair invite him to go on an expedition to locate the impact site.

Rukh finds the meteorite, but is exposed to its unknown radiation, now dubbed "Radium X". This causes him to glow in the dark and to make his mere touch instantaneous deadly to any living thing. The exposure also begins to warp his mind. Returning to the base camp, he entreats Dr. Benet to devise a means of neutralizing Radium X's poisoning effect. Benet develops a serum that holds the lethal element's toxicity at bay, but Rukh must take regular doses of the antidote or he will revert to being a luminous killing machine. Rukh returns to his jungle base and learns from Benet that this situation has been complicated by the romantic relationship between Rukh's wife, Diana, and Ronald Drake, the nephew of Lady Arabella Stevens, Dr. Stevens' wife.

Benet takes a piece of the meteorite back to Europe, where he modifies its effects to help people, including curing the blind. Working along similar lines, Rukh cures his mother's blindness, but in spite of her warning, he goes to Paris to confront Benet and the others. There, he pretends to acknowledge his wife's new relationship with Drake, but in reality, it is the first step in his plan for revenge. Rukh murders a Frenchman he closely resembles, making it appear that he has died and been rendered unrecognizable due to an accident with Radium X.

Believing the deception, Diana marries Ronald. Rukh now begins to use his radiation poisoning to kill off the expedition members. He marks each death by disintegrating a single statue on the exterior of a church across from where he is hiding. Each time, he focuses the radiation through a window using a raygun-like device. He manages to kill both Stevenses before the police realize what is happening. Dr. Benet helps them set a trap by convening a scientific conference at his home to discuss Radium X, but Rukh secretly gains access and kills Benet. He has saved his revenge on Ronald and Diana for last but finds himself unable to kill his former wife. This hesitation brings him to a confrontation with his mother, the most important woman in his life. She has foreseen her son's growing madness and smashes the last of his antidote bottles in order to stop him. As the Radium X begins to consume him from within, Rukh jumps from a window. He disappears in an explosive flame, having been vaporized before reaching the ground.

Bill Martin, is the proud owner of a small boulder of an island off the coast of Florida called "Morgan's Island." It is a deserted useless rock to Bill, but by pure chance he stumbles across a treasure map pointing to his island. The map is presented to him by a peg-legged old sailor, Tobias Clump, after Bill and his friend "Stuff" Oliver saves the man from drowning. Clump was pushed into the water by a "phantom," who got away with part of the treasure map. Clump tells them that the map shows the way to infamous buccaneer Sir Henry Morgan's twenty million dollar treasure. Soon after this, Bill's cousin George offers to buy the whole island for the amount of $20,000, but Bill isn't willing to sell. Instead he brings the map to a reputed cartographer named Jasper who claims that the map is fake—it's a very well-made forgery. Letting go of the thought of the legendary treasure, Bill instead thinks of making some money by starting a "treasure hunt" cruise to his island, for fifty dollars apiece. He involves Stuff in the plans and together they start out for the island to plant a fake treasure for the tourists to find. On their way they are involved in a traffic accident, and by "accident" meet the posh Wendy Creighton and her boy toy, Thurman Coldwater. Since Bill is a little short of money he persuades Wendy to take his treasure cruise.

The phantom that stole part of the treasure map from Clump reappears and warns Wendy and tells her that she will die if she stays on. She doesn't take this seriously, but the phantom appears once more, this time in her bedroom at night, and warns her again. Everyone believes that someone is pretending to be the ghost in an effort to scare them all off. A man in a cape kills Rod in front of Arleen, but when she gets back to the rest of the group the private investigator McGoon suspects her of being the killer. Bill suspects Tobias, who is still missing, and a "footprint" from a peg-leg is found near Rod's body. It turns out there is big reward set for the dead gangster, "dead or alive". Tobias reunites with the group and tells of a key he has found. It is supposed to unlock a torture chamber in the castle, where Sir Henry Morgan's treasure is hidden. The group enters the chamber but finds only a single gold coin. As they return to the castle's main hall there is a note on the table saying "nine left". The cross-bow fires again, but misses Clump by an inch, killing the phantom instead. It turns out the phantom was no other than an old shipmate of Clump's. On the phantom's body they find the rest of the treasure map.

Bill, Stuff and Clump go to find the treasure, leaving George and Wendy to themselves in the castle. They find a new note saying "eight left" and when George tries to find the anonymous killer, Wendy is abducted by an unknown person. When the rest of the group is back at the castle they find George murdered inside one of the armor suits. Bill realizes that Jasper must be the killer, but when Bill confronts him with Rod's gun in his hand, it turns out the gun is unloaded and Jasper gets the advantage. Bill, Stuff and Wendy escape, but only to find themselves trapped in a secret passage inside the castle walls. As they get rescued by Clump, it turns out the passage leads directly to Sir Henry Morgan's treasure. Jasper follows and finds them, forcing them on to the treasure chamber. As they open the final passage door an axe falls down to kill Jasper. The rest of the group enter the treasure chamber and opens the chest, only to find the skeleton of Sir Henry Morgan himself. Disappointed the group members make their way back to the surface, where they meet a government agent, who offers to buy the whole island from Bill in order to build a naval base. After all the mysteries are solved, Bill and Wendy become a pair, making Bill worth $7,000,000.

This episode pays tribute to the great stage and Hollywood actor Mr. Colin Clive; best known for his role as Henry Frankenstein in 1931's "Frankenstein" and 1935's "Bride Of Frankenstein. Joining the Pass is very special guest- Universal horror historian and author Mr. Greg Mank. Mr. Mank's book "One Man Crazy! The Life and Death of Colin Clive" is referenced in many of our discussions points and can be ordered on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Crazy-Death-Colin-Hollywoods-Frankenstein-ebook/dp/B0825V6XML/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+life+and+death+of+colin+clive&qid=1626563726&sr=8-1

You can also check out past and future works of Mr. Mank on http://www.gregorymank.com

Shipwrecked traveler Edward Parker is rescued by a freighter delivering animals to an isolated South Seas island owned by Dr. Moreau. After Parker fights with the freighter's drunken captain for his mistreating M'ling, a passenger with some bestial features, the captain tosses Parker overboard into Mr. Montgomery's boat, bound for Moreau's island .

When Parker arrives at the island, Moreau welcomes Parker to his home and introduces him to Lota, a young woman whom Moreau claims is of Polynesian origin, and who seems fearful and withdrawn. When she and Parker hear screams coming from another room, which Lota calls "the House of Pain," Parker investigates. He sees Moreau and Moreau's assistant, Montgomery, operating on a human-like creature without anesthetic. Convinced that Moreau is engaged in sadistic vivisection, Parker tries to leave, only to encounter brutish-looking humanoids resembling apes, felines, swine, and other beasts emerging from the jungle. Moreau appears, cracks his whip, and orders them to recite a series of rules ("the Law"). Afterward, the strange "men" disperse.

As Parker spends time with Lota, she falls in love with him. Eventually the two kiss, but Parker is then stricken with guilt, since he still loves his fiancée, Ruth Thomas. As Lota hugs him, Parker examines her fingernails, which are reverting to animalistic claws. He storms into the office of Dr. Moreau to confront him for creating Lota. Dr. Moreau explains that Lota is his most nearly human creation, and he wanted to see if she was capable of falling in love with a man and bearing human-themed children. Enraged, Parker punches Moreau to the ground and demands to leave the island. When Moreau realizes Lota is beginning to revert to her panther origin, he first despairs, believing that he has failed—until he notices Lota weeping, showing human emotion. His hopes are raised and he screams that he will "burn out" the remaining animal in her in the House of Pain.

Meanwhile, the American consul at Apia in Samoa, Parker's original destination, learns about Parker's location from the cowed freighter captain. Fiancée Ruth Thomas persuades Captain Donahue to take her to Moreau's island. She is reunited with Parker, but Moreau persuades them to stay the night. The ape-themed Ouran, one of Moreau's creations, tries to break into Ruth's room. She wakes up and screams for help, and Ouran is driven away. Montgomery confronts Moreau, and implies that Ouran's attempted break-in was arranged by Moreau. Donahue offers to try to reach the ship and fetch his crew. Moreau, seeing him depart, dispatches Ouran to strangle him.

Learning that Moreau has allowed Ouran to break the Law, the other beast-men no longer feel bound by it. They set their huts ablaze and defy Moreau, who tries and fails to regain control. He demands of them, "What is the Law?" Their response is, "Law no more!" The beast-men drag the doctor into his House of Pain, where they bind him, screaming, to the operating table and assault him with his own surgical knives.

With help from the disaffected Montgomery, Parker and Ruth make their escape. Parker insists they take Lota along. When Lota sees Ouran following, she waits in ambush. In the ensuing struggle, both are killed. The others escape by boat as the island goes up in flames, presumably destroying Moreau's work and eradicating the beast-men.