A young man steals a glimpse, through a window, of his fiancée's family secret - her hidden freak-monster-brother, "something that doesn't belong in a house", and flees from the prospect of breeding anything similar. Next her father threatens to leave home unless his wife agrees to have the boy institutionalised, which she passionately refuses.
Left alone with her daughter and 'sectioned' son, the mother (played by an exceptionally well-cast Augusta Dabney, pain and wisdom shining through those fine eyes) consults a doctor, recently struck-off for dabbling in hypnotism. Played by David Lewis, he carries conviction through his strong physical presence, though his accent is the weirdest mix of Irish and almost joke-Scottish.
After a distinctly odd demonstration of his skill, which he calls 'mind force', healing a burn on the daughter's skin, he is allowed to start work on the son, of whose scaly-reptile hands we only get a brief but horrifying close-up view. Rasputin-like, the hypnotist is able to forbid the mother from seeing her son during the cure, which takes many weeks (leaving us wondering more than a little about the boy's daily living arrangements).
Then suddenly it's Christmas Eve, and the father is back, this time accompanied by the hospital administrator, demanding that the boy must be put away... when he suddenly emerges from his room, fully restored to normality, and then it's just like the end of a Jimmy Stewart film.
However unbelievable, this story is probably based on a real-life event, since they bother to give the family a surname (Parish) and set the scene in 1890's Boston.
Left alone with her daughter and 'sectioned' son, the mother (played by an exceptionally well-cast Augusta Dabney, pain and wisdom shining through those fine eyes) consults a doctor, recently struck-off for dabbling in hypnotism. Played by David Lewis, he carries conviction through his strong physical presence, though his accent is the weirdest mix of Irish and almost joke-Scottish.
After a distinctly odd demonstration of his skill, which he calls 'mind force', healing a burn on the daughter's skin, he is allowed to start work on the son, of whose scaly-reptile hands we only get a brief but horrifying close-up view. Rasputin-like, the hypnotist is able to forbid the mother from seeing her son during the cure, which takes many weeks (leaving us wondering more than a little about the boy's daily living arrangements).
Then suddenly it's Christmas Eve, and the father is back, this time accompanied by the hospital administrator, demanding that the boy must be put away... when he suddenly emerges from his room, fully restored to normality, and then it's just like the end of a Jimmy Stewart film.
However unbelievable, this story is probably based on a real-life event, since they bother to give the family a surname (Parish) and set the scene in 1890's Boston.