Man-Made Monster 1941

An accident on a bus collides with a high-voltage line, killing everyone aboard except Dan McCormick, Lon Chaney Jr. who survives because he appears immune to electricity. He becomes Dynamo Dan, a popular sideshow attraction, and is taken in by Dr. John Lawrence, Samuel S. Hinds who hopes to study this unusual survivor and understand the source of his mysterious power.

But a darker force looms in the form of Dr. Paul Rigas, Lionel Atwill, a brilliant yet unscrupulous scientist who dreams of turning the phenomenon into a weapon. Rigas sets out to create an army of electrobiologically-driven zombies, pushing the boundaries of science and ethics in pursuit of power. He subjects Dan to progressively higher doses of electricity, a grueling regimen that tears at the survivor’s mind and binds him to the addictive lure of the electric charge. The ordeal gradually gives Dan a terrible, almost supernatural edge—a touch of death that enables him to kill anyone he touches by electrocution.

Tragedy strikes when Dan accidentally kills Dr. Lawrence, and Rigas uses the incident to justify a dangerous experiment: McCormick’s execution by the electric chair to observe what the charge will do to a man already driven to the brink. The plan backfires in a dramatic way when Dan survives the chair, his body now a radiating, glowing conduit of power encased in a protective rubber suit. He spirals into a killing spree, taking lives and blurring the line between victim and instrument of death, with Rigas among those he eliminates.

The final ruin comes as fate and electricity collide: Dan becomes ensnared on a barbed wire fence, the suit tearing away and the electric charge spilling into the wire. With the power drained, Dan McCormick dies, leaving behind a stark, cautionary tale about the dangers of pushing science beyond its ethical boundaries.