Director: James Whale
Stars: Boris Karloff, Melvin Douglas, Gloria Stuart, Charles Laughton, Lilian Bond
Plot: Five strangers find themselves stranded with the Femm family in their large house filled with family secrets.
The Old Dark House tells the classic story of strangers having car trouble in an unfortunate area during a bad storm, given no choice but to find refuge with a strange family. This is a short, creepy movie starring Boris Karloff (you know who that is, right? Good.). Karloff plays Morgan, the mute butler who has become apart of the Femm family. The Femms, Rebecca and Horace, make it clear as soon as the strangers enter the house that there is something odd about their family. Horace is on edge, and Rebecca makes little effort to be welcoming and friendly. As the storm rages on and Morgan gets his drink on, the unwelcome guests realize that there is more to this family than meets the eye.
This movie is just over an hour long and I was able to watch it on YouTube, so you should look it up if you're interested. If it were any longer I'd think it was a little boring, but the movie wastes no time in getting into the eerie Femm family story. The ending is a little disappointing, but the movie itself was too short for me to feel like it wasn't worth a watch. If you've seen Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses, you'll notice a clip from the beginning of The Old Dark House, and it's clear that Zombie was inspired by not only The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), but this movie as well.
I couldn't find a trailer, but here's a clip featuring Rebecca Femm (the older one) and Margaret Waverton (one of the guests):
Do old ladies talking about "fleshly love" creep you out, too?
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