Don't Believe the Hype

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

While driving in a stormy night on a lonely road in the countryside, Philip Waverton (Raymond Massey), his wife Margaret (Gloria Stuart), and Roger Penderel (Melvyn Douglas) seek shelter at a creepy old house. Horace (Ernest Thesiger) and his sister Rebecca Femm (Eva Moore) are reluctant but receive the travelers and warn that the butler Morgan (Boris Karloff) is a dangerous man when he drinks. When they have dinner, a man called Sir William Porterhouse (Charles Laughton) arrives in the house with his girlfriend Gladys DuCane (Lilian Bond) seeking shelter. Out of the blue, the light goes out and they split to get candles and lamps, while Roger and Gladys go to the car to get a bottle of whiskey. While they drink and talk together, the drunken Morgan attacks Margaret and Philip along a most unusual and bizarre night. The Pre-Code "The Old Dark House" is a comedy horror film ahead of time in the style of "Haunted Honeymoon", "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" or "Young Frankenstein". There are funny (and also silly) moments and Roger falling in love and proposing the gold-digger Gladys is too naive. But the scenes in the car with the heavy storm are impressive. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "A Casa Sinistra" ("The Sinister House")

A darker or stormier night would be hard to imagine, what with all the landslides and floods (and I've been caught out of doors not once but TWICE during hurricanes) and the claustrophobic OLD DARK HOUSE itself the stuff of nightmares. Who could ask for more: a mysterious old "couple," their monstrous manservant, an androgynous, bedridden old patron, and a psychotic pyromaniac locked away in the attic. Throw in two groups of weary travelers and let the games begin. Once again, James Whale tells a Whale of a tale and Karloff, though wordless throughout the proceedings (as in James Whale's first FRANKENSTEIN feature), manages to conjure up some powerful emotion(s); his struggle with three men (Melvyn Douglas, Raymond Massey and Charles Laughton) reminds one of his wrestling match with Colin Clive and Edward Van Sloan in FRANKENSTEIN, as well. All around, a pretty nice way to spend a dark and stormy night.

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

I was about 12 years old when I first saw "The Old Dark House" at the Annex Theater on Manhattan's East Side. Which wouldn't be unusual except that within a few days, the Annex Theater had vanished. It never turned up again in an ad or movie listing. Which made it a curiously appropriate venue in which to watch one of the great horror movies of all time. The film opens on a car slogging through a torrential rainstorm whose occupants seek shelter in a lonely manse rather than risk plunging off a cliff. The people in the house are all mad. Ernest Thesiger is a menacingly genial host. His sister makes it clear that she hates visitors; "there are no beds" she keeps screeching. The butler, Morgan (Boris Karloff) is a mute servant who is only homicidal when he drinks. Which he does whenever there's a storm. Somewhere on the third floor, there's a locked door to keep a madman with a butcher knife from running loose. It's clear that the wayfarers,led by Melvyn Douglas, Charles Laughton and Gloria Stuart may not live through the night. J.B. Priestly's screenplay is both literate and frightening while James Whale (of Frankenstein fame) turns up the terror with wonderfully skewed camera angles and effects. In short, "The Old Dark House" is a rarity...a genuine horror classic.