Selección Terror: La Mansión de los Pantanos

# Museum Catalog Note

La mansión de los pantanos by Ralph Barby is a science-fiction horror serial presented in Spanish translation. The opening sequence depicts Professor Svoboda conducting an experiment: he releases a giant rat—weighing three kilos—into a glass chamber containing a gelatinous, shape-shifting mass that roars and writhes. The creature engulfs and liquefies the rat, demonstrating its predatory nature.

The narrative then follows Ivette, a French journalist, traveling via decrepit taxi through humid swampland to a remote sports airfield. She joins six other international scholars summoned by the enigmatic Svoboda: English intellectual Egan, Russian rationalist Ionich, German woman Ethel, Italian Giogo, Australian Sheldon, and Black American Basil—all former skeptics of Svoboda's theories from a Sorbonne summer course. Piloted by American Owen Hibbs in a seaplane nicknamed "the Duck," the group flies over alligator-infested marshes toward mysterious coordinates in the bayou, uncertain of their destination or purpose.