The modern world was rapidly intruding on the gothic
sensibilities of the previous decade’s horror movies, so Universal obligingly
dropped the monsters into a more contemporary setting. Apart from the change of
scenery, the monsters still grappled with their inner demons. What the 1940s
horror movies seemed to be most preoccupied with was keeping it together. This
would have real and fictional repercussions a decade later.
The optimistic propaganda of early wartime America was
quickly subsumed in the aftermath of the atomic bomb drops that signaled the
end of World War II and would soon usher in the Atomic Age and the Cold War in equal
parts.
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| Looks more like a Jungle picture than a horror story. |
5. The Vampire’s Ghost (1945)
Deep in the jungles of Africa, in the sleepy port town of
Bakunda, the local missionary priest is worried that the natives are worked up
over voodoo superstition and Roy, our dashing young hero who runs the rubber
plantation is concerned, too. Roy decides to consult with the world-weary ex-patriot,
Webb Fallon, who “knows more about the underworld than many of the natives,”
whatever that means. They reason, because he hangs out in the dive bar on the
docks, he may know what’s got the locals so freaked out, and, well, of course,
he knows far more than he’s letting on.
This isn’t some coy premise for an on-screen romance; the love
interest perks up when she hears the word “vampire” within the first fifteen
minutes of the movie, and gives everyone a textbook definition of the word
before condemning the idea as hokum. Needless to say, the newcomer in town is always
the one to suspect of vampirism, and The Vampire’s Ghost is no
exception. John Abbott plays Fallon as learned, tired, and pragmatically urbane,
and his eyes are almost their own special effect. He’s instantly sympathetic
and even kind of likeable, when he’s not mesmerizing everyone else in the movie
with his hangdog peepers, that is.
This low-budget pulp-era thriller flies under a lot of folks’
radar, but it’s got a lot going for it, thanks to an inventive script by first
time screenwriter Leigh Brackett, the sci-fi pulp writer who would go on to
work with Howard Hawkes on the definitive adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s The
Big Sleep, as well as Hatari! El Dorado, and Rio Bravo.
Decades later, she would turn her writing talent to a little movie called The
Empire Strikes Back. Brackett worked within the bounds of the low-cost
practical effects and cobbled together a memorable and interesting vampire that’s
not quite like any other bloodsucker on the screen. An excellent and efficient
example of doing less with more.
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| Hatton suffered from acromegaly, an adult onset pituitary disorder. |
4. House of Horrors (1946)
When a struggling sculptor gets a harsh critique from a
newspaper art critic (costing him a commission sale in the process), he
resolves to throw himself off of a bridge. Wouldn’t you know it, it’s the same
bridge that the Creeper, a local fiend who strangles women, is making his
daring escape from the cops. The artist pulls the Creeper out of the drink and nurses
him back to health. Along the way, he gets the idea to use him as a model for
his next sculpture. The Creeper is so grateful he decides that murdering the
artists’ critics is the best way to pay him back for all of the kindness he’s
been shown.
This macabre romp is full of panache and pizzazz, when the
murders aren’t happening, of course. There isn’t really a house in House of
Horrors; oh, there’s a converted studio, and an upscale apartment, and plenty
happens in both locations. Art, quips, false accusations, stings, and even a
few murders. Martin Kosleck plays the tortured artist, and he’s certainly no Peter
Lorre, but that doesn’t keep him from trying. Rondo Hatton’s own biography is
heartbreaking, but he made the most of the bad hand he’d been dealt by playing
disfigured heavies, and House of Horrors (and it’s sequel-prequel The Brute
Man) established him as “The Creeper.” His scenes are all well-lit, and
effectively creepy.
There’s a weird buoyancy to the script; the cops, reporters,
even the critics, are all rejects from His Girl Friday, cracking wise at
every opportunity and razzing one another. It’s a stark contrast to when Hatton
shows up in his greatcoat and porkpie hat. This is a minor classic, but it’s worth
seeing getting to “Meet the Creeper!” if nothing else.
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| You can skip the sequel, unless you're one of those cat-people... |
3. Cat People (1942)
A beautiful and fragile woman named Irena is convinced that
she will turn into a panther if her passions are enflamed. This puts a crimp on
her new friendship with a young man named Oliver Reed, who eventually convinces
her to seek professional help. A little crazy can’t stop young love, but
jealousy sure will, and Oliver and his female assistant Alice try to break free
of Irena and her jealousy and paranoia. When Oliver confronts Irena, she shows
him the horrible truth about herself.
Another low-budget, strange movie, one that would influence
generations of creators. In 1942, Val Lewton was made the producer for RKO’s
horror movies. He was given small budgets and time constraints, but he was also
giving autonomy to do what he wanted. His first offering was Cat People,
based on his own short story, “The Bagheeta,” first published in Weird Tales
Magazine in 1930. With so little to work with, Lewton made the most with what
he had, which was a crack technical crew and a talented director, Jacques Tourneur,
who threw every trick in the book at the story.
Cat People was an instant hit, and remains a classic
because of the way Tourneur generates and builds suspense throughout the movie.
You really don’t know if Irena is crazy or supernaturally cursed until the very
end of the movie. The movie launched a string of successes for Lewton and his
filmmakers. The remake in 1982 starring Natasha Kinski and Malcolm McDowall lacks
most of the heart, suspense and charm of the original, despite having Natasha
Kinski and David Bowie in it.
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| This gorgeous poster doesn't tell you a damn thing about the movie. |
Dead of Night (1945)
An architect drives out into the English countryside to visit
an old estate in need of renovations. Once inside, he greets the other guests
with awestruck wonder, for you see, he has dreamed of them all, before, many
times now. That’s weird, the other guests say. Why, it reminds me of this other
strange occurrence that happened to me… and so begins Dead of Night, one
of the most influential horror movies of the 20th century.
This anthology features five vignettes, each one directed by
a different director, but overall contributing to the structure of the movie,
which makes for a killer ending. The focus of the stories is one of haunts,
mostly, but there are a couple of other supernatural occurrences, such as the episode
about the Hearse, that keep the party going. The actual level of scares varies
from vignette to vignette, with one episode (directed by Charles Crichton)
played more for laughs than fright. But that final episode…ah, yes, that’s the
one everyone remembers. The one with the ventriloquist dummy. And it’s a good
bet you saw a version of the story, because it’s been ripped off, re-used, and
appropriated by many others, including Rod Serling for an episode of “The
Twilight Zone.”
Itself something of an anomaly at the times, as there had
been a ban on horror films in Great Britain during World War II, Dead of Night
was an influential movie for both the UK and American industries, one that popularized
the anthology movie for the horror genre and jump-started the creepy ventriloquist
doll sub-genre. This one still delivers, thanks to the inventive framing
sequence that can’t help but bring “The Twilight Zone” to mind.
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| A must-see horror classic. |
The Wolf Man (1941)
Lawrence Talbot returns to his ancestral home in Wales,
following the death of his brother, to reconcile with his father, played by the
redoubtable Claude Rains. He meets a girl, he buys a silver-headed walking
cane, and he, of course, is bitten by a werewolf, because that’s how these
things are done. If that seems a little cut and dried, don’t be put off; you
see, there were other werewolf movies before The Wolf Man (notably, The
Werewolf of London, in 1935), and there were certainly other werewolf
movies after, but The Wolf Man is Ground Zero for pop culture
lycanthropy; it’s the Uber-Werewolf movie from which all other goodness
inevitably springs.
All credit goes to Lon Chaney, Jr. who played both man and
beast, and was so effective at it, he’s the only one who ever played the Wolf
Man in the family of Universal horror movies. All of the other actors played
musical chairs with the monster make-up, but not Chaney; he took particular
pride in the character and even in the initial outing, you can see he’s an
accomplished actor.
Writer Curt Siodmak also needs his due. An inventive author
of science fiction and also an accomplished screen writer, he essentially created
the folklore of the movie from scratch, and it was so effective and compelling
that it has been used over and over until it’s become part of the popular
lexicon. Wolfsbane, silver bullets, the creepy Gypsy poem, the communicable
bite, nearly all of the lore was baked into the screenplay from scratch, and judiciously
lifted for decades after. Pretty compelling stuff.
Finally, the movie is just plain great; one of the best
Universal horror movies, having benefitted from a ten-year tradition of making horror
movies, it’s a perfect alchemical blend of the Old World (the gypsy caravan,
the Welsh countryside, the gothic ancestral manor) and the New World (Lawrence
Talbot, man of the science, and his university education and rejection of superstition).
Other, slicker, more seductive werewolf movies have since taken hold of the popular
imagination, but they all owe a debt to this inarguable classic.
