Villian(s)  Mad doctor

Actor(s):  Mark Burns, Shirley Anne Field, David Oxley, Margaret Inglis

Brief Description  House of the Living Dead (also known as Doctor Maniac or Curse of the Dead) is a 1974 science-fiction horror film directed by Ray Austin. A rare international co-production between Great Britain and South Africa, the movie blends 19th-century gothic period drama, mad science, and occult horror against the backdrop of a South African plantation.

Plot:
The film begins at Brattling Manor, a sprawling English-style plantation house nestled within a South African vineyard. A mysterious, limping man wearing a cloak and a burlap sack kidnaps a baboon from the property and retreats to a hidden, red-tinted laboratory in the mansion's attic. This man is Dr. Breckinridge "Breck" Brattling (played by Mark Burns), a discredited scientist who was left severely disfigured and mentally unstable following a near-fatal accident a year prior. Breck is obsessed with a radical theory: he believes the human soul is a tangible, organic object that can be scientifically isolated, transferred, and contained outside the physical body. He begins his experiments by surgically tampering with the brains of local wildlife and estate animals. Meanwhile, a young woman named Mary Anne Carew (Shirley Anne Field) arrives at the plantation to marry her fiancé, Sir Michael Brattling—who is actually Breck’s twin brother (also played by Mark Burns).

Upon her arrival, Mary Anne faces immediate hostility from her future mother-in-law, Lady Brattling (Margaret Inglis), who repeatedly and cryptically warns her to leave the estate. As local animals go missing and gruesome murders begin to plague both the livestock and the human estate workers, a dark family secret unravels. Mary Anne notices a wild, aggressive black horse that constantly roams the property, seemingly trying to interfere with the family's actions. Mary Anne eventually discovers the horrifying reality of Breck’s attic experiments. Breck did not just experiment on animals; he successfully mastered soul transference. He had actually swapped souls with his brother, Michael. The man Mary Anne thought was her loving fiancé is actually the mad scientist Breck inhabiting Michael's pristine body. Meanwhile, Michael's soul has been trapped inside the wild black horse roaming the vineyards. Breck's ultimate goal is to experiment on human souls permanently, coveting Mary Anne’s soul to trap her alongside him for eternity in jars.