Grip of the Strangler (1958)
Boris Karloff plays a novelist investigating a twenty year old case of dance hall girl murders attributed to the now hanged Haymarket Strangler. With a bit of quite literal digging (Karloff digs up the body from it's grave) Karloff comes to the conclusion that the man hanged was innocent and that he himself is the notorious strangler.
Whilst the plot twist to this low budget British horror film hinges on the ludicrous, Karloff himself is excellent, effectively twisting his features into the Haymarket Strangler without the use of or need of prosthetics and at the age of 71, resurrected a career which had fallen into decline.
Directed by Robert Day, Grip of the Strangler is a moody, haunting affair depicting a shadowy, foggy London perfect for a knife wielding maniac, and a typically British piece of Gothic black and white cinema.
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