SoftInloveRox Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Sienna-Rose Mclaughlin The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

dougdoepke Mayan gas! I wish they could have come up with a potion that doesn't sound like a bad meal at a Mexican restaurant. Trouble is the fumes turn people like nice young Ted into slow thinking zombies. Then they can be used by madmen like Dr. Morris (Zucco) for nefarious purposes, like corralling the lovely Isabel (Ankers). Then again, the potion only works as long as the doctor can feed his zombie human hearts. Not exactly standard fare at most fast food outlets. At least the cast carries off the nonsense with conviction. The 60-minutes looks like an assembly-line product in Universal's horror series. The scariest thing is the fog-shrouded graveyard, likely left over from The Wolf Man (1941). Too bad zombie Ted (Bruce) looks more like one of the mop-haired Beatles after a hard day's night than anything undead. Surely make-up could have done better. Nonetheless, Bruce gives it his best hard-eyed stare. Anyhow, Ankers never looked lovelier, while Bey gets to stand around and look on handsomely. Look fast too for noir favorite Charles McGraw as a cop sidekick, plus Gunsmoke's (1955-1975) very own Doc Adams (Milburn Stone) as the head cop. Overall, the best thing about this potboiler is the cast and a nicely ironic ending. Otherwise, Universal horror has done a lot better.

utgard14 Evil professor George Zucco has the hots for singer Evelyn Ankers. He's also been experimenting on animals with an ancient Mayan gas! Zucco decides to clear a path to Ankers by using the gas on her boyfriend (David Bruce). This turns Bruce into a murderous ghoul who needs human hearts to survive. Little does Zucco know Ankers was already planning on dumping Bruce for Turhan Bey. As Homer Simpson would say: "D'oh!"Fun, lively Universal B horror movie with a nice cast and an interesting plot. George Zucco is awesome. I would watch this classy actor in anything. Evelyn Ankers is lovely as she always was in her Universal films. David Bruce, an actor I'm not overly familiar with, gives a sympathetic performance here. Turhan Bey has little to do. Robert Armstrong plays the obligatory wise-cracking reporter. If you're a fan of Universal horror films or George Zucco, you'll enjoy this a lot. It's not one of Universal's best but it's pretty good.

gftbiloxi Lovely concert singer Isabel Lewis (Evelyn Ankers) is engaged to marry medical student Ted Allison (David Bruce.) When she unexpectedly falls in love with her pianist Eric Iverson (a very suave Turhan Bey), she turns to Ted's laboratory boss Dr. Morris (George Zucco.) But it happens that Dr. Morris is in love with Isabel himself, and he decides to get rid of his assistant by subjecting him to ancient Mayan gas! Unfortunately for Ted, this gas is of a particularly nasty sort: it transforms him into a zombie-like creature. Under the control of Dr. Morris, Ted then participates in gathering the human hearts he must have for injections that allow him to return, temporarily, to normal.The idea for this story seems to arise from a number of sources, most particularly the silent classic THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, the various versions of DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, and THE RETURN OF DR. X--the latter a particularly peculiar B-flick featuring an unexpected Humphrey Bogart as a lab-created vampire of sorts. It other hands, the concept might have worked quite well, but although the cast is accomplished and the production values are generally quite good, the make-up effects are hardly up to the Universal standard, the pace is slow, and the script is quite dire.The film makes no effort to create any sort of "transformation" when actor David Bruce goes from golly-gee lab assistant to shambling zombie; it is a straight cut-away, cut-back-to shot, and the latter finds him in uninspired make-up and with very untidy hair. Director James P. Hogan maintains a pace every bit as leaden-footed as the zombie, and as for the script... well, it is probably this sort of script that Evelyn Ankers, the studio's "Scream Queen" of the 1940s, had in mind when she walked away from Universal a year later. Given the talents of the cast and the overall look of the film, which (make-up effects aside) is handsomely mounted, I find it difficult to give this film less than three stars. All the same, I greatly doubt that THE MAD GHOUL will have any appeal for those outside the circle die-hard Universal horror fans.GFT, Amazon Reviewer

twanurit Another Universal pleasure, spinning out a horror framework behind a story of three men in love with the same woman. Evelyn Ankers is the beauteous object of affection, playing a concert singer engaged to a handsome college student (David Bruce), but she's fallen for her pianist (Turhan Bey), while the student's mad scientist mentor (George Zucco) is hopelessly smitten. The scientist achieves a "living death' syndrome to his unwilling student, eventually using it as a tool to rid the pianist. The stars are great, earnest and engaging, particularly Bruce and Zucco. Grand soundtrack and fog-shrouded, shadowy scenes abound. A fun, time-capsule flick from the masters.