10 Lost Horror Movies You Can't Watch

The Wizard is a silent horror film from 1927, just before the advent of the ‘talkie’ motion picture, of which very little to no information exists anymore about it.

What we do know is that it was directed by Robert Rosson, co-director of the 1932 gangster movie Scarface, and based was based upon the novel Balaoo written by Gaston Leroux, writer of The Phantom Of The Opera.

The film was about a professor Coriolos seeking vengeance on the members of a jury who sentenced his son to the gallows, so he decides to use mad science to create a gorilla whom he trains to kill the jury members in question. It was a movie with a strong anti-death penalty message, which were incredibly popular at the time; although whether trying to get a message across with a rampaging gorilla killing off a jury was a good idea or not is yet to be evidenced.

The film was produced by the Fox Film Corporation, and sadly the last known print destroyed thanks to the Fox studio vault fire of 1931.

Since then, it remains as one of the most sought-after horror films of the silent era, with collectors eagerly awaiting the day a copy turns up in the attic of an old Fox Studios employee - but that remains to be but a dream, as all that exists are stills and posters.