Boobirt
Stylish but barely mediocre overall
Seraherrera
The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity
Matylda Swan
It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.
Delight
Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.
magicshadows-90098
This film was made by Universal Pictures as a part of their horror library. Universal refused to release it and then sold it to PRC. When I first started collecting movies in the 1980's this was a very difficult movie to find. I was always interested in the Universal horror catalogue and I desperately wanted to locate it. It certainly never aired on TV here and the video traders I was associated with had never seen it. Then Admit One, a small Canadian Company, issued it on VHS. I purchased it and it is still the copy I own today.The Creeper (Rondo Hatton) is a horribly disfigured man who is being hunted by the police. He lives in the shadows away from all curious eyes. His tale is then told in flashback that the Creeper was once a successful college student. During a science experiment, an explosion caused his disfigurement. Now he wishes to gain revenge against those he feels are responsible for his sorry state. His misery is abraded away by a chance meeting with a blind musician (Jane Adams). He allows himself this brief friendship, while at the same time, his inevitable demise is close at hand.The current IMDb rating (in the 3's) is very harsh. I suspect because this has played on MST3K and those films tend to get rated lower by their viewers. I remind MST3K viewers not to rate the actual movie. BECAUSE YOU HAVEN'T VIEWED THE ACTUAL MOVIE. There is a place on IMDb where MST3K episodes can be rated. PLEASE GO THERE.
mark.waltz
One of the more unworthy low budget horror films to be ranked nearly as a bomb, I found this to be quite moving. Rondo Hatton, aka the Creeper, is on a killing spree, and the baffled police can't find him, even though they know who he is. He's actually a very gentle soul but how he got so deformed has lead him to revenge which was the result of a college prank enticed out of jealousy. He falls for the blind but pretty Jane Adams who is the only one kind to him. Hatton, who usually said very little in films, has a surprising amount of dialog here, yet is actually extremely believable and that makes you want to like him even though he is a killer. I presumed that his lack of dialog in other films was because of his lack of talent, but I was glad to be proved wrong. As told in flashback by those who do know him, you can understand why he had to kill. Tom Neal plays the man who reveals all he knows, and that scene is masterful in its story telling. Its also nice to see Donald McBride playing a cop who isn't a buffoon, although his final idiotic line seems to come out of nowhere. Suspenseful and gripping, this is much better than I expected. A Hatton lookalike later showed up in a period adventure, "The Rockateer".
JoeKarlosi
Rondo Hatton (who suffered from the disease Acromegaly) allowed himself to be exploited by Universal Pictures near the end of his life for some horror-themed movies. Here in his final film he plays the deformed murderer named "The Creeper" for the last time, who is on the prowl and hunted down by the police. He seeks refuge in the home of a pretty blind pianist (Jane Adams from HOUSE OF Dracula). If there is one film from this period that I'd call "only pretty standard stuff", it would be this one. But at least there is a flashback sequence which offers a semi-interesting slant on how the Creeper came by his unfortunate appearance. ** out of ****
FieCrier
Following a silhouette of Hatton (or someone made to look like him) walking stiffly, like the blind Frankenstein's monster, an alarm is sent out to police cars to catch The Creeper, who has killed a professor. The Creeper then kills a woman who doesn't recognize him, and a delivery boy who is none too bright. On the run, he chances upon a blind woman who treats him kindly, and whom he feels inclined to be kind to as well (shades of both the blind man from Frankenstein and perhaps City Lights).A flashback reveals the Creeper's weak motivation for the murders, perhaps better explained by his presumed insanity/brain damage.Not a great movie, and definitely inferior to the two other Creeper movies, even though it had the same writer and director as House of Horrors. Yarborough directed several other horror movies, The Creeper (1948) (unrelated to this Creeper) The Devil Bat (1940) starring Bela Lugosi, Hillbillys in a Haunted House (1967), King of the Zombies (1941), the Bowery Bows horror/comedy Master Minds (1949), and She-Wolf of London (1946). He also directed several episodes of The Addams Family!It is sad the way Hatton's look was exploited, in a way even the cast of Freaks was not.