Capital Tales: The Dark Eyes of London

The first British film to receive a mandatory 'H' (for 'Horrific') certificate, this spine-tingling chiller deserved its rating. Five corpses washed up from the murky Thames lead the police to a strange charitable institute for the blind, overseen by insurance broker Dr Feodor Orloff. Legendary screen Dracula Bela Lugosi is superb as the gleefully evil Orloff, imaginatively wreaking terror through hypnotism, electrical torture and drowning, aided by a monstrous homicidal giant (the scary Wilfrid Walter). Despite a fast-paced narrative, director Summers wisely allowed Lugosi's ornate acting style room to breathe, with splendidly gruesome results.

Introduced by an Archive curator