In 19th-century Edinburgh, a respectable surgeon’s need for cadavers for his anatomical studies forces him into a grim pact with a sinister cabman. Director Robert Wise turns Robert Louis Stevenson’s tale into a masterclass of shadowy, psychological horror. Boris Karloff is chillingly brilliant as the grave robber whose sinister joviality masks a deep-seated menace, holding a dark power over the very man who depends on him. This Val Lewton production explores the grim tango of ethics, ambition, and the darkness in the human heart, where the true horror is not supernatural, but the moral decay of men.