I begin my Shock-BOO-ber this year in a place that’s always a fun place to start when exploring the history of the horror genre. I’m of course talking about the Universal monster movies cooked up by studio head Carl Laemmle, Jr. in the 1930s that gave us some of film’s most iconic horror villains. One of those, of course, was Frankenstein, brought to life in 1931 by director James Whale, who would later bring to the screen other iconic characters in this loose “universe” with 1933’s The Invisible Man and 1935’s The Bride of Frankenstein. However, the horror movie he would follow up Frankenstein with didn’t really have any iconic characters in it and was fairly forgotten for many years. And yet, I would put The Old Dark House right up there with any of the great Universal horror movies and a great example of Whale’s knack for dark intrigue with a dash of camp. Continue reading
