Before I Hang

Things go wrong when a doctor (Boris Karloff), condemned to death for mercy killing, is allowed to carry on his experiments using a criminal’s blood.

Before I Hang takes a decent premise, that aging is a disease that can be cured, and runs it into the ground with a tired plot twist that ignores much of the film’s potential.

Karloff is good in another dual role, this time as more of a Jekyll & Hyde, and his teaming with Edward Van Sloan, who played Van Helsing in Dracula, will be a delight for classic horror buffs, but it’s hard to ignore the film’s wasted potential.

Most of that is because much of the film’s premise is still resonant today. Mercy killing is still a very hot button issue, and today’s science regarding aging is still somewhat in line with Karloff’s character’s simplified explanation. Yet, rather than explore the implications of what it would mean to live forever, or even to exist in a younger man’s body, the film asks us to swallow that the urge to murder is carried, literally, in the veins, and that a syringe full of a criminal’s blood will turn anyone into a sociopath.

It’s a stupid, tired, twist and from there on the film descends into a predictable Jekyll & Hyde with Karloff knocking off his friends and colleagues until everyone clues in. Of course, Karloff himself does a great job with the transformations, but unfortunately, by that point, we’ve lost interest.