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.

 

Murders in the Zoo

 

Murders in the Zoo

Director ~  A. Edward Sutherland

Writers ~ Philip Wylie, Seton I. Miller, Milton Herbert Gropper

1933, US

Stars ~ Charles Ruggles, Lionel Atwill, Gail Patrick

 

A murder melodrama with serious outré inclinations with our bad guy Charles Atwell stopping just short of the ham that Tod Slaughter would have thrown in. He’s a sadist bumping off anyone he suspects of having designs on his wife, Evelyn; but also, masochistic where he seems to get off on her hatred for him. His toxic patriarchal masculinity is synonymous with the primal nature of the animals – his collection, his trophies – that he only sees these “beasts” in terms of in terms of “they love, they hate, they kill”; he sees no nuance in them for he is a psychopath. There’s genuine pre-code sadism and nastiness – that opening is startling, certainly setting out the agenda for the continued streak of the macabre throughout.

There’s plenty of period charm and fascination, but you might find yourself wondering about the on-set studio safety of the era. Certainly, there is obvious ambivalence to the handling of animals, if not downright maltreatment. And although Gorman’s homicidal virility is associated with the wildlife (Evelyn calls him out for rape-within-marriage during their confrontation), the animals aren’t given true agency, aren’t even presented as hunters, just “let loose” and/or blamed. There’s something messy at loose and Gorman assumes a combination of connivance and privilege will let him get away with it. The animals represent what the elite’s codify and imprison and have luxury meals amongst in a time of Depression, what is repressed, sexually and socially.

 

For comparison, note how the comedy relief Charles Ruggles is scared of the animals: impotent in all ways. He is such a broad comedy relief that’s it’s a wonder that when he is finally charged to do something of import, namely to call the police, the fact that he manages it without a pratfall is quite out of character. In fact, although Ruggles is toplined, his character contributes nothing except irritation.

Tonally insecure maybe, but there are enough pre-code shocks and themes (infidelity!) to make this a worthy curio. 

Door

Door

Director ~ Banmei Takahashi

Writers ~ Ataru Oikawa, Banmei Takahashi

1988, Japan

Stars ~ Keiko Takahashi, Daijirô Tsutsumi, Shirô Shimomoto

Taking a long time to kick in, ‘Door’ is a film that often feels like padding rather than slowburn, despite planting promises as it goes along (oh, a mini chainsaw…). Yasuko (Keiko Takahashi) is a housewife mostly looking after her small son with the absence of her husband seemingly filled by pushy salesmen on the phone and at the door. It’s this that causes problems when she closes the door on one salesman’s fingers, instigating a campaign of revenge-terror.

 Daijirô Tsutsumi as the salesman often glares and is framed as if he has wondered in from a noir (in a phone booth, simmering, even with a neon green headset), elsewhere the film shifts into the feel of giallo (blades!). Predominantly, it feels like kitchen sink with the score seemingly on random play and starting without much blending (very giallo). Yet elsewhere the sound design overlaps and the foley work toils overtime in isolating the footfalls and the metallic clang of the door – hardly a secure sound – creating an almost otherworldly aesthetic.

Yasuko’s vulnerability and anxiety are played at believable rather than hysterical levels, and with all the male pushiness trying to sell her something, the intimation that the apartment is just as much a prison as a safe space increases. But there’s no avoiding the sense of the film time-killing and there’s a drag until the the pyrotechnics of the showdown: points about everyday life, the gender disparities, the unhelpful society, passive-aggressive capitalism, the stalker creepiness, are all made early. When the home-invasion takes over, there’s a lot to credit in the authenticity of the clumsy tangling and fighting between housewife and assailant, that she doesn’t quite become some kind of righteous kick-ass female heroine. There’s surely unintentional humour but something absurdly realistic when they are trying to battle a mini-chainsaw through the door with a fork and rollerskates: it’s like kids trying to recreate ‘The Shining’ with dad’s tools.

But the peak of it is an overhead tracking shot of a chase through the apartment, a stunning sequence that is worth the wait.