Horror 2026 Countdown: Doctor X (1932)

Doctor X (1932), dir. Michael Curtiz, First National Pictures

Bit of a transition phase right now, as while we're still looking at slashers, we're also looking a special focus. In the past we've looked back at particular performers or characters, and this is no exception. This year we look back at the career of Fay Wray, one of the premier Scream Queens. 

Lee Taylor (Lee Tracy) is your typical hard nosed reporter, quick with a byline and snarky retort. Lately he's been looking for a break in the Moon Killer case, and brother, he might get his chance. Who is the Moon Killer? No one knows, but all his murders occur on the full moon. He also apparently strangles his victims before he takes a chunk of flesh out of them. 

And by takes, I mean rips off with his teeth. The police are stumped, but there's another factor to consider. All previous victims have also been stabbed with a peculiar blade, one so unique there's only place in the entire country where one could have access to it-Doctor Xaiver's Institute for Medical Research. 

Doctor Xaiver (Lionel Atwill) is perplexed at this, as one would imagine. The other fact that all the murders occurred within a few blocks of the institute pretty much close the book as far the police are concerned. Desperate to clear his name and his institute, Xavier offers to take the police and introduce them to the ground and his fellow scientists, surely that will dispell any suspiscons, right?

It does until they meet the doctors.

Dr. Wells (Preston Foster) is obsessed with his artificial flesh plus he seems to mark every tic for a mad scientist. The fact that he's missing his left hand (the Moon Killer is a lefty it seems) is the only thing that clears him.

Doctors Haines (John Wray) and Rowitz (Arthur Edmond Carewe) are quite a pair. They, along with a third doctor, made headlines when they were shipwrecked. Only Haines and Rowitz were found, however, and the third doctor was never seen again...

Rowitz and Dr. Duke (Harry Bresford) are even more suspicious to the police, as it seems their main field of research now is the study of moonlight on the mentall ill. 

Taylor, meanwhile, has snuck around the side and is eavesdropping via the fire escape when he's discovered by Xaiver's daughter Joanne (Wray) finds him and chases him off via pistol. Taylor tries again the next day, where he learns Xaiver and the rest of the doctors will be at Xaiver's secluded beach estate to conduct their own investigation. 

The investigation is fruitful in its own way. Strapping everyone down in a room and bathing them all in moonlight, Xaiver hopes to ferret out the Moon Killer. He doesn't, but with Dr. Rowitz found dead, it does prove the killer is amongst them. The question is, who and can they stop before he strikes again?

An odd duck this; on the one hand we have an entry in 'the reporter tackles a locked room mystery' so by the numbers you almost expect to see them flashing in the corner of the screen. On the other, you have a murder mystery that goes in such a bizarre and grotesque direction I can honestly say I was shocked when I first saw this. Wray does a decent job although her romance with Taylor is perhaps the most baffling mystery of them all.