bsmith5552
"The Old Dark House" was largely unseen for many years due to Columbia Pictures acquiring the rights to re-make the film in 1963. Universal was then prohibited to screen the 1932 original even though they still owned the film.The picture is a gloomy atmospheric James Whale masterpiece of its kind. It was largely promoted as a follow-up to Universal's 1931 hot "Frankenstein" which also featured star Boris Karloff in a non speaking role while wearing complicated make ups. In "The Old Dark House", Karloff has surprisingly little to do except growl in close ups of his grotesque looking make-up. He does have a rampage scene though. The bulk of the screen time is given to the impressive ensemble cast.The story in brief, has travelers Philip and Rebecca Waverton (Raymond Massey, Gloria Stuart) along with friend Penderal (Melvyn Douglas) motoring through rural Wales in a driving rain storm. They come upon a creepy dark old mansion in the middle of nowhere where they plan to seek shelter for the night. They are greeted at the door by a gruesome looking mute servant, Morgan, who shows them in. Inside they are met by Horace Femm (Ernest Thesiger) and his hard of hearing sister Rebecca (Eve Moore) who reluctantly admit them and provide them with a roast beef dinner. Then another pair of stranded travelers, Sir William Porterhouse (Charles Laughton) and his "chorus girl" companion, Gladys (Lillian Bond) arrive seeking shelter. Penderel and Gladys immediately fall in love.Morgan starts drinking in the kitchen and becomes violent and attacks Margaret Waverton with evil intent but is driven away. Meanwhile, when the power goes out, Waverton and Horace go upstairs to retrieve a lamp, Woverton hears a noise from upstairs. Before he can investigate, he is attacked by Morgan whom he crashes the lamp over.Woverton discovers a 102 year old Sir Roderick Femm (Elspeth Dudgeon) who warns of his older son Saul (Brember Wills) who is insane and kept under lock and key. Then Morgan frees Saul and................................................It was a coup having Douglas, Laughton and Massey all available at the same time for this picture. They basically carry the picture with Karloff's sinister presence, providing the horror element. The other players are equally good in their roles . We get to see the lovely Ms. Stuart in her undies as well. I couldn't help but notice the young Laughton's resemblance to the young Alfred Hitchcock.
pyrocitor
It's a funny experience when a film evokes déjà vu, only to realize the source of the déjà vu is, itself, intended to itself incite déjà vu. Picture this: a miserable storm sweeps a carload of normal people, as earnest as they are bedraggled, into taking refuge at a spooky old manor, only to be besieged and coveted by the prurient, camp Gothic inmates. But don't do the Time Warp again just yet: at the core of this Russian Doll of horror, pastiche, and dark humour lurks James Whale's oft-overlooked but seldom forgotten mini- masterpiece – The Old Dark House. As Poe-faced as if the script had been quoth by the Raven itself, Whale's film is, if not the granddaddy of most horror clichés, then at least the wry, drunken great-uncle. And, weathered as it is, time has been kind to this one, making The Old Dark House a creepy, clever, and sordidly amusing addition to the pantheon of horror classics. Singing not included; pelvic thrusting barely omitted. If nothing else, The Old Dark House makes for a fascinating transitional tonal touch-point for Whale, one of the defining masters of classical horror. The film isn't as overtly satirical and camp as Whale's later monster mash-terpieces, The Invisible Man and, especially, Bride of Frankenstein, but it certainly shows him creeping in that direction, with a persistent snicker of irreverent naughtiness under its raspy breath. This isn't to say the film is an outright farce - indeed, Whale runs the gamut of thematic leitmotifs that would proceed to become preoccupations for decades of horror to follow: dogmatic religion, lurid sexuality, class discrepancies, and shunned, disabled family members. Yet, his film crackles with an invigorating, nervy energy, and his characters banter with zingy, pre-screwball fury, with several double-entendres pushing the boundaries of Hays Code knuckle-rapping with cheeky aplomb (maybe Whale assumed American censors wouldn't understand them through the Welsh accents?). His setup is certainly foreboding enough, with the harried car ride prelude across flooding, lightning-scarred Welsh countryside a perfectly ominous amuse-bouche for the sinister, Gothic castle theatrics to come. Whale's flair for atmospheric mise-en-scène is superb, peppering the film with marvelously spooky flourishes and Expressionist lighting keeping the audience biting their nails throughout (one bit, where a woman makes shadow puppets on the wall with her hands, only to have a dark figure emerge from the shadow, is a jump scare for the ages). But Whale bides his time, keeping his pacing cunningly slow and allowing his film to froth at the mouth with looming tension.Whale's film is also remarkable for the unprecedented access the audience is given to his cabal of characters. Too many horror films introduce characters as disposable (and disposed of) props, but Whale treats the first half of his potboiler like a theatre piece, as the growing crowd of storm refugees and reluctant hosts meet, and poke hopes, dreams, prejudices, and – mostly – fears out of each other. Whale's ensemble rises to the challenge, delivering genuinely well-crafted and compelling characters, particularly the suave, sharp-tongued Melvyn Douglas, the tough but chipper Lilian Bond, and, especially, Charles Laughton, who gives a remarkably heartfelt performance, his effete bluster whisking away to reveal a man plagued by terrible loneliness underneath. His monologue, revealing his bitter turn to capitalism as a means of finding purpose and escaping past tragedy, is strangely tragic and surprisingly moving amidst the film's tongue-in-cheek tone, and a curious counterpoint to Depression-era cinema's usual propensity for portraying the super-rich as vacuous twits. Ernest Thesiger and Eva Moore deliver masterclasses of brooding as the manor's sister tenants, while title star Boris Karloff is genuinely terrifying, his performance so much more affecting than the mere rage-ravaged riff on his Frankenstein lumbering and grunting you'd initially expect. Finally, Brember Wills gives a performance so deft and daringly over-the-top that he turns horror conventions on their head even while pushing new boundaries of skin-crawling, especially for the 1930s. Whale's quieter companion piece to his more famous forays into the macabre may tip the cap more at Hitchcock than Mary Shelley, but ably continues his macro theme of humans being far more terrifying than any conventional 'monsters.' The Old Dark House may be humbler in scope, and somewhat more tonally imbalanced than some of its cohort of horror classics (including a swooning romantic subplot that's altogether too saccharine and sincere to play amidst its sardonic surroundings). Still, at a mere 72 minutes, the film is as concise and sardonically sinister as it is creepy, and still a slice of spine-tingling fun for an eerie, rainy night. -8/10
MonsterVision99
This was quite an experience, I wasn't expecting anything less from the great James Whale. The Old Dark House (1932) its probably among my favorite horror films from Universal, it has a great cast playing interesting likable characters, and a great director who makes everything work.The horror element in this film its quite effective, its eerie and creepy, but even if it didn't have those horror elements to it the movie would have been worth watching, is just fun to listen to these wonderful characters talk, the writing is quite clever and develops the story in such a way that it keeps you interested and engrossed. The performances, the mystery, the suspense, the horror, the thrills, an eerie mood and a great set are what makes this film great.I definitely recommend it.
DansHauntedHouseful
When describing films that are overly saturated with elements of a certain theme, the phase "X for X's sake" is often used. 'Gore for gore's sake' or 'Violence for violence's sake', you get the idea. I am tempted to use the phase "Creepy for Creepy's sake" when describing the film, although I don't mean it in a negative way. The Old Dark House doesn't grab you by the head and smash your face down inside a pie of creepiness. Rather the creepiness is all around you from beginning to end, though it may not always be subtle.It is a simple story – a violent storm forces two sets of travelers to seek shelter at and old, dark house. The inhabitants of the house are quite strange, as would be expected. There are several subplots that arise, and some of these are awkward. But never mind, the purpose of the film is not to tell a thought-provoking story with a compelling plot. Instead, it is to revel in the art of the uncanny. It succeeds in its goal with dark and chilling atmospheres, crafty camera-work, and its effective use of shadows. Some of the characters are humorously unsettling, even by today's standards. I would like to go more in depth and describing some of them, but that would require me to tread too far into the forest of spoilers and I don't want to do that. Oh and there's the screeching of the wind! Gotta love that! Read more of my review at my blog, which is found in my profile
