Der Hund von Baskerville

Summary

A fog-choked moor, half-real half-fantastical, becomes the stage for a hallucinatory chess game where identities slip like mercury. In this 1914 German mutation of Conan Doyle’s beloved chiller, the lycanthropic legend that has stalked the Baskerville bloodline for generations is no longer a spectral hound but a carnival of trapdoors, nitrate flares and doppelgängers. Watson is erased; in his place stands a second Holmes—an impish counter-self birthed from Stapleton’s warped genius—who prowls corridors of candlelight in perfect mimicry of the deerstalker silhouette. The real sleuth, caught between twin reflections, must shield the trembling aristocrat Lord Henry and his betrothed Laura Lyons from a villain who counterfeits the very concept of heroism. Around them, gaunt crags splinter into hidden staircases; hand bombs bloom like malevolent chrysanthemums; a wind-up automaton, equal parts toy and terror, clicks across flagstones to deliver death with clockwork precision. Gothic dread collides with penny-dreadful sensationalism until moor, manor and mind become interchangeable labyrinths.

Synopsis

In this early version the classic "Hound of the Baskervilles" mystery is not faithfully adapted, Watson's character is absent and there are two Holmes. Holmes' foe is called Stapleton and he menaces Holmes' client Lord Henry and his fiancée, Laura Lyons, masquerading himself as Holmes. Hidden passages, hand bombs and mechanical devices abound, reminding more of a serial than of a Conan Doyle story.