Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob4  Good choices Dem
The Door with Seven Locks is available from Kino as Chamber of Horrors.
A few I've seen from the 30s and 40s that are worth checking out:
The Bat Whispers
Murder by the Clock
The Phantom of Crestwood
The Ghoul
The Cat and the Canary (Bob Hope)
The Ghost Breakers (Bob Hope)
Horror Island
The Night Monster
Arsenic and Old Lace
The House of Fear (Basil Rathbone, Sherlock Holmes)
And Then There Were None
Dragonwyck
I think Hitchcock's Rebecca fits quite well in the old dark house category as well.
There were literally dozens of these type movies, both serious and comedies, made in the 30s and 40s and to be honest I've hardly scratched the surface in catching up with them mainly due to availability. The general category of old dark house also fits under many horror sub-categories: hauntings; fake hauntings; murder mystery; masked phantoms; monster on the loose; psychological thriller, etc. |
The comedies do nothing for me sadly, as far as being old dark house movies anyway. I can't deny i love
Arsenic and Old Lace but wouldn't recommend it to someone who wanted to watch an old dark house horror film.
I've never rated Bob Hope's comedy either.
Dragonwyck, an interesting choice. Seen it twice this year and there are certainly some sequences of brilliant Gothic horror especially the shot from outside looking in on Price. However for someone just getting into the genre it's quite a mellow dramatic film for the most part and has little in the way of chills until the last few minutes.