Sunday, October 21, 2018

Psychobabble’s 31 Favorite Universal Horrors: #11


Halloween season simply isn’t Halloween season without a regular dose of golden age Universal horror (1923-1963). Every day this October, I’ll be giving you a steady IV drip of it by counting down Psychobabble’s 31 Favorite Universal Horrors!

#11. The Old Dark House (1932- dir. James Whale)

James Whale played it straight with Frankenstein and delivered a solidly scary movie. But it wasn’t very Jimmy. Now that he’d established himself as a horror master, he could work his personality into his pictures more assuredly, and he first did so with The Old Dark House, which strikes a brilliant balance between Whale’s creepy imagery (Karloff’s grunting butler, twisted Saul lurking about and setting fires, Rebecca’s disturbingly distorted reflections) and his delicious humor. Those images, that humor, and a fab cast turn clichés so hoary that the title of this film became a genre unto itself into something deliriously fresh, funny, and freaky.

All written content of Psychobabble200.blogspot.com is the property of Mike Segretto and may not be reprinted or reposted without permission.