10 Most Controversial Films Of The Classical Hollywood Era

7. Doctor X (1932)

At first glance, Doctor X is a pretty straightforward story about a mismatched pair, a reporter and a doctor in this case, who team up to hunt down a killer who leaves a peculiar signature on his victims. But as this film happened to be produced in pre-Code Classical Hollywood, Doctor X turned out to be a lot darker and gruesome than what audiences were expecting. Set in a miserable-looking New York City, the protagonists are hunting down the villain, the Moon Killer, who has a preference for committing horrific murders under the moonlight and eating part of the corpse. On top of infusing the story with gruesome murders and cannibalism, the film ups the ante further by interweaving in elements of rape and prostitution just for good measure. And as a cherry on top of an already-controversial film, the climax decides to sprinkle a bit of human experimentation in by revealing that the killer was a mad scientist who was harvesting flesh to create synthetic human tissue. So really, Doctor X sounds like a 30's take on Se7en with a few elements of Frankenstein sprinkled in. Despite veering well into territory that even Se7en would think is a bit too dark, Doctor X was still a success with audiences and critics.