1948 Directed by Oswald Mitchell
In this psychological thriller, an avaricious man covets his stepbrother's home. The greedy fellow knows that his stepbrother has a heart condition and so sets off a fatal attack by smashing a beloved violin. However, his actions do not come without a terrible price.
1st Oswald Mitchell
Perfectly average Gothic thriller about an utter cad who drives his stepbrother to an early heart attack by smashing his violin in front of him. Of course, he gets his comeuppance, but it's all just a little bit routine. It also does that cheeky thing of 'is there a ghost or is it all in his mind?', which somehow ticks me off. I think that ambiguity can be a substitute for lazy or cowardly writing (The Innocents and The Haunting are exceptions because they clearly bake it into the narrative from an early stage), and the climax of the film, while satisfying, does faintly feel like this.
Laurence Harvey also gives a remarkably unsympathetic performance as Francis,…
A picture that had to be outdated even when it premiered and feels practically ancient now. You get characters playing uninspiring classical music whenever they feel like it and these sequences seem to last forever. Everyone is dressed in costumes that seem to suffocate them. Characters talk a lot, move to another room and then talk some more, while the dramatic music tries to drown their voices out (which is a shame because they present a variety of glorious British accents). There is also an unneeded frame story, told by... an orchestra conductor/composer. This film apparently wants to be a musical but is stuck as a psychological horror.
But at least the villain, visible in the poster, is up to…
Solid Gothic thriller in which a very young Laurence Harvey plays a scoundrel determined to get his hands on the family fortune by getting rid of those in his way.
Hooptober 9: #6/50 (8 decades: 1940’s)
A nice classy gothic chiller showcasing a gripping performance from the villainous lead, Laurence Harvey.
Tame quota quickie creeper. More a bore, really. Movie debut of Laurence Harvey, who does bring something sinister to this, but for the most part this was a nothing horror.
I'm not sure if I would classify this as horror in retrospect. It builds up horror elements that never come to fruition, and it plays out more along the lines of a traditional thriller. As a thriller, though, it's really not that great. I would hate to sound like a film review you've probably seen a million times by now, but nothing of interest happens here. Someone dies, people think there's a ghost, but there just isn't a ghost by the end. You're not gonna like it. I sure didn't.
Nobody here does anything interesting, besides the lead Laurence Harvey. His mannerisms in this have more character in them than most horror of this time period.
I watched this film…
House of Darkness is one of the drawing room ghost stories that the British horror film industry consisted of prior to the success of Hammer films a decade later. John Gilling, later one of the more underrated of the Anglo-Horror cycle directors with the likes of The Plague of the Zombies and The Reptile, writes the story.
John Gilling keeps everything carefully ambiguous as to whether the ghosts are real or not. Indeed, House of Darkness could well have been influenced by the psychological horror films of producer Val Lewton – Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie et al – which left one unsure as to whether the horror element was real or imagined. Maybe the ambiguities don’t turn…
Laurence Harvey puts in a mean performance in this his debut film. Not the haunted House of horror I expected but the budget in those days often meant the threat of horror was all you actually got
"He acts like a frightened man driven to the border .... of insanity"
If you're in the mood for some starchy/overblown acting, you'll love this stiff British thriller that has greedy Lawrence Harvey causing a homicidal/snooty fuss over an inheritance at a very snooty house populated by the snootiest family ever = Hilarious. Recommended.
In this psychological thriller directed by Oswald Mitchell, a young man visiting a house that turns out to be haunted is terrorized by the ghost of a man who had been murdered there years before.
The story of this psychological thriller concerns a man who visits his stepbrother who knows that he has a heart condition. He sets of a fatal attack by completely breaking a violin and then throws his wife and other stepbrother out of the house, but his action are not going to come without an awful price…
It looks to be a decent film on paper, but the result on screen means the movie falls short on expectations.
The cast only give OK performances in their…
