The Old Dark House

A film about travellers taking shelter in a house during a storm. Three people are stranded on a road in Wales. The rain is heavy, the road has collapsed and the only option is the house nearby. The door is opened by a scarred servant who cannot speak. The house belongs to the Femm family. The brother is strangely courteous, the sister is deaf and fixated on religion, the eldest of the family is in bed upstairs, and there is a room nobody enters. More guests arrive during the night and the table fills. The narrative turns largely on that dinner: the conversation grows odd, the hosts contradict each other, and the storm outside lets nobody go. The film stands between horror and black comedy. What is frightening is not a creature but the condition of the people inside the house. Karloff plays the servant; Melvyn Douglas, Charles Laughton and Gloria Stuart are in the cast. James Whale directed. It was considered lost for a long time; a print was found years later and the film returned to circulation. One of the founding examples of its genre for anyone who likes classical horror and 1930s studio cinema. For a viewer expecting modern horror, it does not frighten and its effect comes entirely from atmosphere.