Classic camp. When I say camp, I don't mean cheese; I mean an intentionally exaggerated style, exhibiting genuine affection for the ridiculous. The love that James Whale seems to feel for the eccentrics that inhabit the titular house elevates this film above most stories in its genre. Rather than the one-dimensional villains that horror films generally show their audience, Whale gives us some wonderfully weird characters to hang out with.

Of course, the empathy they evoke make them less frightening,…

Just short of a full score due to the silly and remarkably rapid romance but it doesn’t occupy too much celluloid and can in no way ruin one’s enjoyment of this fantastic film. Still a bit creepy after all these years but now it is more the tremendous performances and the wacky dialogue that thrills. Ernest Thesiger and Eva Moore are the brother and sister from hell who reluctantly take a collection of storm hit travellers into their very dark…

James Whale was a sneaky devil. I'd read that this film parodies "old dark house" tropes while simultaneously creating the very same mini-genre. (Old Dark House stories -- especially with a gorilla -- were very popular vehicles on poverty row in the 1930's.) That commentator described the film perfectly. It's post-modern, thirty years before that concept was invented. Or maybe it's meta? If you watch 1935's Bride of Frankenstein, you'll find the same mix of parody and proper horror (done…

This is one strange film (directed by the one and only James Whale)! It is like a mixture of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (crazy family) and The Shining (alcoholism). Five travelers seek shelter from a storm. They come to the Femm family estate. The family is anything but normal and they have to try to survive a night with them.

Boris Karloff plays an uncivilized brute who sometimes drinks heavily and once he's drunk he's rather dangerous. The family…

Being one of the Universal Monsters films, directed by James Whale, starring Karloff and Ernest Thesiger, The Old Dark House was certainly already on my radar. It was brought up at the recent screening I attended of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, which only whetted my whistle. Then yesterday, my pal who oversees the midnight movie series shared a link to the film on YouTube. I was too run down to stream it last night but I needed some distraction…