The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2019: The Old Dark House (1932), directed by James Whale

The Trailer

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The Appropriate Tune: "Hyacinth House", by The Doors

       There’s something pure about the idea of the ‘haunted house’ in movies. In this modern cinematic landscape dominated by 80’s reboot serial killers and bloated CGI monsters, we can often forget that one of the basest methods of building fear and suspense is putting people in a place that they don’t want to be in. From the ‘based on a true story but not really’ chills of the Amityville series to the cartoonish surreality of Nobuhiko Obayashi’s House, to the underrated animated gem of Monster House, creepy houses have long been a staple of the horror genre, but who were the pioneers? Who were the creepy houses that paved the way for creepy houses in cinema, the foundation for those houses if you will? Can you believe that’s what we’re talking about now?

One of the earliest members of the now famous horror movie line put out by Universal Pictures, The Old Dark House was directed by Frankenstein’s James Whale and based on a novel by J.B. Priestley. On a dark and stormy night (natch) in the Welsh countryside, a young couple known as the Wavertons and their devil-may-care friend named Penderal find themselves boxed in by flooding and mudslides, and are ultimately forced to seek refuge in a nearby old dark house. The residents of said house, neurotic Horace Femme (Ernest Thesiger, who some might remember as Dr. Praetorius in Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein), curmudgeonly sister Rebecca, and brutish manservant Morgan (Boris Karloff) do their best to engender an atmosphere of awkward tension and general unpleasantness, which is only heightened by the arrival of more guests, businessman Bill Porterhouse (Charles Laughton) and chorus girl Gladys Duscayne. You see lurking within the halls of Femme Manor are things most foul, secrets which are connected to the Femme family’s history of madness, death and debuachery. Secrets which, if they are released, could spell the doom for not only the remnants of the Femme family, but their guests as well. In a way that’s completely original and not at all reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher.

       I keep trying to figure out a way to start off this paragraph, and the thing I keep coming back to is The Old Dark House is a very low key type of film. Very much like a stage play, which was common for film at the time, but The Old Dark House feels especially theatrical. From the large room where the majority of the film takes place to the small cast of characters, it’s like a little Agatha Christie mystery come to life. Which isn’t bad necessarily, but aside from a scene in the beginning featuring a mudslide and a short scene in Rebecca’s room there’s not much that really takes advantage of the medium. It’s not much of a visual standout either, compared to the German Expressionist-inspired visuals of Whale’s Frankenstein films. It’s got old and it’s got dark and that’s it, which is a little underwhelming considering the talking up from the family would make you think they would share an interior decorator with the Addams Family.

        Not much to say about the casting. It’s nice to see Ernest Thesiger back on the Thunder-blog of course, Charles Laughton is always a treat and the actress who played Rebecca Femme is the anchor of the film. Boris Karloff is underutilized, thrust into yet another silent monster role but with none of the emotional depth of Frankenstein’s Monster. Everyone else is just kind of there, in fact you could excise the Wavertons from the film entirely and not much would change, but they perform their duties.

       Unfortunately The Old Dark House suffers from a condition that many classic horror films suffer from, in that it’s likely not going to be scary to a modern audience. Even when compared to its fellow Universal movies, where there's a possibility of a monster lurking in the shadows waiting to strike The Old Dark House seems tame by comparison, relying almost entirely on its setting to attempt to induce fear in its audience. It ends up producing some bizarrely disconnected scenes, such as one where Ms. Waverton, for some reason that escapes me at the moment, runs around the empty living room in a panic, rushes to the door but apparently isn’t frightened enough to walk outside in the rain, and then cut to the next scene. Even the dramatic finish doesn’t hit as hard as it could, because it like the rest of the film lacks any bite. Perhaps if the pace had been slowed down a bit, because it does feel like the abridged version of a mystery novel, but when the biggest scare in the first half hour of your movie is a window being blown open I can’t say for sure.

       If you’ve already seen the big Universal monster movies and you’re ready to dig a bit deeper this Halloween, then there’s no reason not to give The Old Dark House a watch. By that same token however, if you’re not interested in those 30s horror movies there’s nothing about The Old Dark House that’s really going to pull you in. Besides the thought of home ownership in this day and age, I guess.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2015: Freaks (1932), directed by Tod Browning

The Trailer

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The Appropriate Tune: "Freak", by Lana Del Ray

     It is said that humans are inherently afraid of things that are unknown or foreign to them. Racism, Fascism, Xenophobia, Religious prejudice, many of the things that we consider the bane of humanity, the black marks in the history of our collective civilization, could be contributed at a basic level to fear. All because a bunch of hairy protohumans needed to a way to make sure they didn’t have their fruit stolen or eaten by cave-snakes and giant sloths.

     Horrible? Yes. Devaluing to the entire experience of being human? Yes. Yet it is those fears of ours that inspired some of our greatest works of art, and of course the very idea of horror. It was the fear of those great unexplored frontiers, outer space and the depths of the ocean, H.P. Lovecraft used in the creation of his Cthulu Mythos. It is our fear of of solitude that give that chilling edge to films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes (even though that movie sucks). It is the ultimate fear, the fear of death, that was the basis for vampires and ghosts. We may be slaves to these primal urges, but at least we have the intelligence to recognize it, and attempt to move beyond them.

     Such is the case with Freaks, directed by Tod Browning, who had helped kick off the Universal monster series and horror cinema in general with Dracula the year before. The story, a classic tale of love, greed and bloody revenge, utilizes the most elemental ‘monsters’ of them all: those with physical deformities (no special effects here, it’s all natural), what they used to call sideshow acts back when traveling circuses were still a thing. However, in what was probably a huge twist in the 30s, where they still gawked at people with disabilities and hated everything that wasn’t a WASP, the so-called ‘freaks’ are not portrayed as the villains here. In fact, they are treated as a nice, close-knit family, able to laugh and love and everything a human is capable of. Instead it is the ‘superior’ people, the strong, the beautiful, who are the true villains and are eventually damned due to their greed and hatred. It’s a powerful statement on the inherently destructive nature of prejudice in an era where a significant portion of the population were barred from voting or eating at certain restaurants, and I have to wonder whether that was the intent or even if moviegoers/critics even recognized that subtext. I’m sure if the circus folks were slightly more tanned, the movie would have taken a different turn.

     By treating the ‘freaks’ as people defending themselves from assholes, it does mean that Freaks isn’t really all that scary. Aside from the climax, which can be truly chilling, I doubt even the most thin-skinned of watchers will find that much to fear here. However the same could be said of most movies of this era when viewed by a modern audience, and in my opinion it’s paced far better than Dracula (which can be a slog if you’re not used to it), which makes it a far easier film to watch. It’s got a bit of that cult film feel to it, and you know I’m a fan of those cult films. This is your history homework for the Marathon this year, so check it out.