House of Horrors

House of Horrors

Director ~ Jean Yarbrough

Writers ~ George Bricker, Dwight V. Babcock

Stars ~ Robert Lowery, Virginia Grey, Bill Goodwin, Martin Kosleck, Rondo Hatton

 

Wait, is the title a critical opinion of out belittled artist's sculptures?

Cracking under the disillusionment brought on by bad reviews, misunderstood artist Marcel De Lange (Martin Kosleck) finds himself in possession of a serial killer The Creeper. As a kind of repayment for the kindness De Lange has shown him by taking him in when finding him washed up half dead, The Creeper happily goes out and murders those critical of De Lange’s work.

So it's a little self-referential as the screenwriters revenge on the critical backlash against the genre at the time. Setting a trend in aggrieved and desperate artist-murderers to follow in the likes of ‘Bucket of Blood’, ‘Driller Killer’, ‘Theatre of Blood’ or even ‘Blood Feast’, De Lange is quite a sad sack and sympathetic initially, unable to take the seemingly perpetual unappreciation (the scene-stealing cat helps). But he brandishes a knife even before he meets The Creeper, so it’s all set up that when he meets the Creeper and appropriates his striking visage for his “greatest work”, they are of the same stock. Kosleck plays De Lange with an elegance and articulacy that outdoes everyone else who are mostly stock types, even Virginia Grey.

However feisty and independent-seeming Grey is as go-get-‘em art critic Joan Medford, bringing fizz to proceedings, Medford still humours her boyfriend’s possessiveness and finally forfeits her autonomy for marriage.  The men are fairly interchangeable (but get top billing), although the investigating Police Lieutenant (Bill Goodwin) is a bully, happily abusing his privilege and passing sexist comments as he goes along. But then we are in the world where the law will accept the offer of liquor before quite resolving a sting operation.

Spine-snapping and strangling The Creeper is played by Rondo Hatton, a journalist whose features pronounced by acromegaly meant he went on to a brief career in screen villainy. The insensitive casting of his distinctive looks as synonymous with ugliness and villainy, as well as some objectification of women, casts an exploitation light, although the film doesn’t play that way. Nevertheless, he is unforgettable and it’s a shame that he died before the film was released and that he never got the chance to develop.

So there’s Kosleck and Hatton for eloquence and menace and Grey for loveliness and liveliness, and some sparky dialogue and distinctive sets, but there is a workmanlike feel to proceedings. Universal was going through the motions and winding down with its genre output and despite some nice shadow-work and the promise of its title, this is tame stuff. There’s none of the pre-code nastiness and troubling edges of, say, ‘Murders in the Zoo’. But it’s entertaining in an old-school horror manner and its short running time means it never outstays its welcome.