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Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi star in this macabre horror classic inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe.

Dr. Richard Vollin (Lugosi) is a brilliant but unstable surgeon with a morbid obsession for instruments of torture. He saves the life of Jean Thatcher (Irene Ware), a beautiful young socialite injured in an automobile accident, and becomes increasingly attracted to her. But the girl is frightened by his advances and complains to her father, Judge Thatcher (Samuel S. Hinds), who tells Vollin to leave the girl alone.

When escaped killer Edmund Bateman (Karloff) approaches the surgeon for a new face, Vollin agrees only after convincing Bateman to assist him in his sinister plan of revenge. The doctor ultimately becomes the victim of his own wicked schemes when Bateman realizes Vollin has no intention of remaking his disfigured countenance in this elaborately produced shocker.