Horror filmmaking, especially in the earlier days of Hollywood, was a fascinating time, especially when it comes to exploring the careers of specific individuals, whether directors or actors. The Old Dark House is one of the few horror films that can be considered a perfect symbiosis of multiple genres, conventions and styles, and the rare example of a film taking full advantage of its premise in a way that is not only enthralling but utterly unexpected. James Whale may have been better known for his more notable horror films such as Frankenstein and The Invisible Man, so it’s hardly surprising that something like this, a relatively small and rather absurd film, would be otherwise underrepresented in his career. However, there is a case that could be made that The Old Dark House, while perhaps not his very best, nor his most memorable, is his most audacious – and for reasons that will certainly be outlined throughout this review, one of the most daringly original films of the 1930s, one that extends beyond the confines of horror and into a multitude of genres that would otherwise take other filmmakers decades to combine so seamlessly. Funny, dark and utterly unique, there aren’t many films quite like The Old Dark House, and there’s no qualms in calling this a refreshingly original film in a cinematic landscape that, at the time, was driven by formulae and conventions rather than boldness, which is not to rag on the filmmakers of the time, but rather the genius of this very specific film and the individuals assembled to bring it to life.

If anyone was going to reinvent the horror genre before it even developed on its own, it was going to be James Whale. There’s something very interesting about a filmmaker that wasn’t at all an outsider to the genre, but rather one of its definitive figures, challenging the very conventions he would go on to define, crafting something that is as much an indictment on the genre as it is a celebration – and considering this is a film made in 1932, predating films like Freaks and The Black Cat, which are films that are fundamentally connected to this film purely on the virtue that Whale seemed to be anticipating the direction the genre would go, we can already see how this is a film that is very much ahead of its time – and who better to make a film that deconstructs a genre that hadn’t even reached its creative and cultural apex than the person who helped build it? Not to hammer in this point, but the key to unlocking the brilliance of The Old Dark House is in noting how conceptual this film was – while we exist in a world where the blend of horror and comedy has not only become a common sub-genre, but one that is extremely respected when done well, Whale’s film is still shockingly daring by modern standards. This is not a traditional horror film – while it does have the same formula that most horror films still tend to follow, in terms of the crisis-solution-resolution cycle, it does so with such aptitude and wit, it can sometimes feel as if the film itself is challenging the very groundwork of the genre. The Old Dark House is a postmodern work made decades before anyone could even conceive of such a term, let alone work within it. There are disheartening flaws and soaring merits to be seen in this film, and it all works together to craft one of the most daringly original horror films of its era, and indeed any era.

There’s a lot that can be unpacked about The Old Dark House in how it approaches horror – Martin Scorsese once remarked that every film made since 1952 could be traced back to John Ford’s The Searchers – and a similar sentiment can be said for this film and the horror genre. It’s difficult to conceive of this film as an entity on its own – so much of the experience of watching it entails seeing it as the forerunner of so many of today’s most beloved horror quirks – and not only does it manage to be one of the first truly successful amalgamations of horror and hilarity, it ventures into other sub-genres that had not even been conceived of in quite so lucid terms, and wouldn’t for at least another decade. The psychological horror (in quite literal terms), the character-driven thriller that only came to such sincere fruition towards the end of the film noir era, as well as still finding a space for the romantic subplot (which, in all honesty, was the only part of The Old Dark House I didn’t care for, and the reason why this film may not have worked as well as an individual entity on its own – but more on that later). Whale, through either the process of indecisiveness about the tonal direction or sheer intrepid audacity, made something that perhaps wasn’t understand in quite the way it should’ve been at the time, but certainly deserves another look from a modern perspective.

We’ve mentioned postmodernism very briefly, and while a deviation into discussing The Old Dark House from this perspective may be interesting, it also wouldn’t pay tribute to this film as a product of its time. At this point, it’s possible we’ve even tried to learn to run before we’ve even attempted to walk – one of the great enigmas of The Old Dark House is the exact approach Whale was using in the making of the film, because it isn’t something that bases itself in one genre and infuses different ones into it to create a multifaceted work, but rather a film that leaps so often between so many different genres, it’s difficult to determine what this film actually is. It isn’t very often that the genre of a film is left so open to interpretation, which seems to be what Whale relishes so much about The Old Dark House, and is precisely what makes this such a fascinating work all on its own. Some may see it as a horror film with moments of genuine hilarity, others as a screwball comedy made from the perspective of some of the great Victorian-era horror writers. This is Noel Coward writing for a penny dreadful while channelling Edgar Allen Poe – the third act of the film is simultaneously so compelling as it is terrifying, and Whale doesn’t go anywhere near the supernatural or otherworldly – psychological horror in the truest sense of the word, the viewer will find themselves entirely disoriented by the sudden descent of this otherwise charmingly twisted film into something so purely unsettling, and extraordinarily harrowing, especially considering the very realistic basis of the horror that makes up this film. The film’s thesis statement isn’t made very clear, which is why it’s so narratively ambigious, and for the most part, this kind of vague genre-shifting does work very well, with the exception of the final act, which is both the most brilliant in how it sets up the climax, and atrociously lazy in how it resolves it, ending in a way that feels far less on-brand for Whale, and more like the work of studio interference, where even something as bleak as The Old Dark House needs to have a happy ending. The romance in this film doesn’t necessarily distract, but it does somewhat erode the sharpness that this film had otherwise been mostly operating at.

Whale, who was not always known for his subtletly, seems to be working at constructing something a lot simpler here, while still not necessarily deviating all that far from outright horror. The difference here is that The Old Dark House derives all its effectiveness – both comedy and horror – from the script and the actors that bring it to life. In this regard, while it’s a very funny film with moments of legitimate terror, we have to acknowledge this as a terrific piece of acting on its own. At this cue, it’s important to bring up one of the key cornerstones of horror is the terrifying nature of the unknown, and how the eventual revelation of what has been lurking in the shadows can either be cathartic or outright horrifying, depending on the intentions of the specific work – in The Old Dark House, both seem to be true, with the eventual entrance of Saul, the omnipotent villain who lives locked away at the top of the house, and who terrorizes even his own family. Brember Wills is excellent in the role and considering he has only eight minutes on screen in the film, and still manages to be the most memorable part of it, is not a comment on the weaknesses of his co-stars (some of which were unfortunately wasted), but on the might of his brief but instantly unforgettable performance. There are performers that struggle to do in entire films what Wills does in a few minutes – he plays the victim and the villain almost simultaneously, and while there is quite a bit of unnecessary deviation throughout the first two acts, they’re worth sitting through purely for Wills’ portion, where his interactions with Melvyn Douglas (who is also exceptional, doing well with an otherwise run-of-the-mill dashing hero archetype, which he elevates, even when the film itself doesn’t feel all that interested in doing so) make this a remarkable film all on its own terms.

The Old Dark House also exhibits a quality that became very notable in later horror films in misleading the audience into believing one person to be the villain, when the opposite tends to be true – Ernest Thesiger and Eva Moore are delightfully despicable and looming at the start, vaguely vampiric and almost malevolent, and the eventual revelation that they’re just a pair of eccentric countryfolk who are cowardly at best, utterly loony at worst, is a terrific example of narrative deception. The rest of the cast is very good, but aren’t given much to do. Gloria Stuart and Lillian Bond try to break out of the bland female archetypes they’re given to play with the best of their abilities, but still come off short due to the film not being interested in them all that much – they’re there to play the frightened females who need to be rescued by the dashing hero, who they subsequently fall in love with, and not much else, which is a great disservice to a pair of performers who were clearly a lot more gifted than the film was willing to give them credit for. This isn’t even mentioning how, despite being headliners alongside Douglas (and astoundingly brilliant actors in their own right), Boris Karloff and Charles Laughton are wasted, playing one-note characters, existing solely to be the source of terror and the comic relief respectively. They’re still very good, but the film doesn’t quite know what to do with them other than seeing them as devices. I still maintain that The Old Dark House is a terrific character-driven piece, and the acting is superb – it definitely could not be as successful had everyone not been committed to these characters, as the bridge between the many genres this film touches on was only possible through the actors, who rise above sometimes one-dimensional roles and deliver really good work in spite of the film sometimes struggling to realize the true potential of such a dynamic cast.

Despite some slight flaws that don’t even come close to derailing the film in the same way similar shortcomings have tended to ruin similarly audacious projects, The Old Dark House is a seminal, but tragically underpraised example of horror filmmaking – ahead of its time in both theory and execution, James Whale’s adaptation of J.B. Priestly’s novel is a tremendously entertaining film, and one that might not fit into the confines of the traditional horror film of the time, but rather feels like an amalgamation of many different styles at a time when such genre-blending was almost unheard of. This is a film that may take some rumination before you can decide on how you feel about it – there’s a lot to unpack in a way that films at the time rarely exhibited, which means, despite the various problems (which we can really attribute to growing pains, as Whale was trying something radically different, which somewhat atones for the disheartening flaws), The Old Dark House is a great success. Funny, terrifying and brilliant in ways that would not be seen again with such lucidity for at least a quarter of a century, this is a memorable foray into cinematic experimentation, and to consider it as anything less as the work of raw, unadulterated genius is not only misguided, it’s dismissive of a film that so many subsequent works would derive their own successes from, sometimes without ever realizing it. To be massively influential while remaining relatively obscure – isn’t that a great achievement all on its own?