The Stranglers of Bombay – 1960 | 80 mins | Adventure, Horror | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Stranglers of Bombay is a slight departure from the normal Hammer-horror fare and based on actual atrocities carried out by the Thuggee religious cult in India in the1820s. Terence Fisher achieves a real sense of the sweltering plains of India and the atmosphere of 19th century colonialism in rural Buckinghamshire.

People are disappearing by the thousands en route to 1820s India, and brave Capt. Harry Lewis (Guy Rolfe) of the British East India Company determines to find out why.A sadistic gang of religious thieves and murderers is carrying out the abductions and not only do they initiate children into their group, but they also perform grisly dismemberments. Meanwhile naïve and stiff Capt. Christopher Connaught-Smith (Allan Cuthbertson) arrives from England assigned to solve the mystery, unfortunately he has little knowledge for Indian culture or religious traditions.

Lewis is subsequently captured by the sect of Kali worshippers, and pinned down aside their alluring talisman; a teenager called Karim. Thankfully for Lewis his ordeal before a snake is saved by the timely arrival of a mongoose. The trading company decides to ignore the threat of the Kali robbers and send all their produce in one bulky caravan during nightfall; unknown to them, the person proposing this, Patel Shari (Marne Maitland), is in cahoots with the thieves.