4 / 5 May '09Tagline: Things you never said before or even dreamed of!
Directed by: Edgar G. Ulmer
Written by: Edgar Allan Poe, Edgar G. Ulmer
Actors include: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Julie Bishop
Genre: Horror, Crime, Thriller
Length: 65 minutes
Banned: Finland
Country: USA
Review:
This is a short 'un, it clocks in just over an hour and it packs quite a punch in that amount of time. We meet a young couple in love on a train who allow Dr. Werdegast (Lugosi) to share their tram. Then an accident occurs and the lady is slightly hurt so they go to the house of Karloffs'. It turns out that Verdegast has a phobia of cats but more importantly he learns that his wife is dead and his daughter possibly dead too and it could all be Karloff's fault...or is Satan involved? When he learns it may not be too late to save his daughter he must compete in a chess game for her life! It's shadowy and cool, and the room of "bodies" that Karloff has collected would be very creepy to someone who was watching in the '30s. In fact it is one of the most graphic earlier films I've seen despite the fact that the word "graphic" wouldn't be applicable to today's standards of course. Still an interesting little retelling of Poe's classic and probably the best "Black Cat" film I've seen yet!
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