Should horror films be fun? Looking at some of his movies James Whale seemed to think so. Like his more famous works The Bride of Frankenstein and The Invisible Man, this is a stylish affair filled with oddball personalities and dramatic lighting. The wind howls and suspicious characters haunt the corridors of an ancient household. But by avoiding the topic of science fiction this is a far more intense story that ventures into true madness. As the title suggests this is a sinister tale. But it's also very funny in a twisted kind of way. Some of the best genre films are of course, and this is up there with the greats from this (or any) period. So pour yourself a glass of gin and help yourself to a potato as we venture inside the spooky residence of the family Femm.
With a cast like this it's not hard to enjoy the proceedings, particularly when a series of familiar faces from the classic age of horror begin to appear. Philip (Raymond Massey) and Margaret (Gloria Stuart) are out for a nice drive in the country with their annoyingly musical friend Roger (Melvyn Douglas) but things take a bad turn when a big storm threatens to drown their car. Blocked in by landslides and almost swept away by flood water they head over to the eponymous house for shelter. However they might start to wish they'd stayed out in the rain when they're greeted by drunken butler Morgan, (Boris Karloff) a strange scarred figure who talks only in grunts and slams the door in their faces. Things are only going to get stranger as they eventually enter the mysterious building.
Indoors the inhabitants at first appear to be just a slightly batty brother and sister, with Horace (Ernest Thesiger) believing that the weather is some kind of biblical curse on the family, as his rather deaf sibling Rebecca (Eva Moore) tells everyone they can't possible stay. Eventually they do allow the group to have dinner and spend the night inside, even after newcomers Sir William (Charles Laughton) and his chorus girl companion Gladys (Lilian Bond) gatecrash their gathering following similar car trouble. It's an odd get together to say the least as Horace warns everyone that Morgan will become violent if he drinks (which of course he does) and Rebecca hints at their troubled family history.
With character actors from everything from Whale's Frankenstein films to The Island of Lost Souls there's a lot of slightly off kilter humour to the proceedings. It's a shame that Karloff is still being used as an intimidating almost mute figure with barely a hint of humanity, but it's a memorable role like all the others. The mixture of eccentric and unnerving is fairly well balanced, particularly as scenes move between the dinner table and Rebecca's bedroom where a mirror distorts her face and suggests that there's more going on than she's letting on. Which of course is perfectly true, and as things progress from the ground floor to the other rooms of the house it's soon evident that this odd couple are not living alone.
Although the foundations are standing firm in the storm the other levels of the house are far shakier, and later in the evening creepy laughter and other sounds can be heard. Since Horace refuses to go upstairs to fetch a lantern when the lights in the house go out, some of the guests ascend to the upper floors. Initially it's just the father of the siblings who's encountered, and although he's over one-hundred years old and sits giggling to himself he seems harmless enough. It's certainly an eerie sequence as Philip enters the room to find this almost ethereal figure lying in wait. But there's one more level for the guests to discover as he explains why the family keeps the brutish Morgan around when he's so liable to drunken behaviour.
At the climax the genial atmosphere descends into violent attacks and pyromania as the whole Femm family history is revealed. Roger is left alone while Margaret and Gladys try to hide in a cupboard as a lunatic prowls the dining room. This mixture of surface level normality and lunatic behaviour is what makes the whole story so engaging, allowing for a lot of suspense and comedy. Sometimes the same scene. There's a slow build up as the tense atmosphere grows, and like a good sudden shock (or a good punchline) it delivers just the right amount of satisfying pay-offs throughout. We've all had family gatherings like this I suppose. Only a disjointed romantic subplot feels out of place as Gladys and Roger discuss love and social standing. They're a charming couple in some ways, but this random affair feels too simplistic and rushed as other more interesting characters are left waiting in the wings.
That being said this is minor lull, a moment of calm before the building storm reaches it's zenith. There's a lot of destruction and plenty of bizarre dialogue as it all comes to a head, and even Morgan gets a moment of pathos during all the craziness. It's far more effective than all the random chit chat about wet shoes and wedding bells. It's a striking and moody little tale at barely over an hour long, but it's all perfectly balanced outside this small detour in the parking garage. There might not be a supernatural icon as a villain or a lot of ground breaking special effects, but it's still a classic of the period. It's filled with weird and memorable moments that still stand out today in what is an essential tale of spooky goings in secret rooms.
4/5
BONUS REVIEW
THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME (1932)
Onto another essential from the same year, this time trading creaky old house tropes for shipwrecked survivor clichés. On a boat in South America hunting writer Bob Rainsford (Joel McCrea) muses with his fellow travellers about what it must feel like to be the tiger in the sights of a gun. As luck would have it he's soon left trapped on an island where he'll discover that very thing. In fact apart from the castle at the centre it seems to be Skull Island... since these sets were also used by the same film makers for King Kong. He even meets some of the cast as Eve (Fay Wray) and her brother Martin (Robert Armstrong) are also conveniently stranded here. However their little cocktail party is not what it first appears thanks to their host Count Zaroff (Leslie Banks).
Less a horror film and more an adventure story, this is still an atmospheric journey into the unknown. Zaroff is a wild eyed aristocrat with a secret basement where his guest are invited to view his trophy room one by one but never return. There are some particularly creepy moments as Bob sees what the contents are, (in case you hadn't guessed it already) and of course there are no lion or ibex heads being mounted here. However the pacing is unbalanced in the second half as the hunt begins and Bob, now the big game, must devise a series of traps to elude the Count and his cohorts. However at even closer to an hours running time this part of the story feels sort of rushed when it could have been much longer and far more tense.
There are a lot of great set pieces as Bob evades arrow points and hunting dogs while doing some boy scout tricks to impede the antagonist. But with Eve in tow it feels less suspenseful that it should have been. I guess offing her along with her annoying drunken sibling would be too much even for a pre-Code film. Despite being a moustache twirling Russian mastermind Zaroff is an intense presence for most of the story, and it would have been nice to see him test Bob further before the finale. The ending is pretty brutal but the penultimate waterfall scene is reversed so quickly that it's just too anticlimactic. Everyone should still watch it of course, and there's a lot to enjoy. But a little more meat to the story structure in terms of hunter and hunted would have gone a long way.
3/5
