House of Horrors (1946)

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

A man crawls out of the Hudson River as another man contemplates jumping in. Seeing the face of the man crawling up, the suicidal man is inspired for his greatest work of art. Meanwhile, rumors of a serial killer named "the creeper" continue to travel as a prostitute is found with her spine snapped. A friendship of sorts grows between the two men. The artist is Martin Kosleck whose work has been panned by a snooty critic. The other is Rondo Hatton, a simple man of hideous looks and brutal strength who is quickly revealed to be "the creeper", and a tool of the vindictive Kosleck.One of the best later B Universal horror films, this is extremely well plotted, suspenseful and features a way above average script. Kosleck and Hatton are sort of the poor man's Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, with Kosleck getting more and more insane, and the pathetic Hatton sort of sympathetic for the child like hurt he feels for society's rejection for his "ugliness". Robert Lowery and Virginia Grey are feisty as an artist and model who are suspects in the critic's murder; Alan Napier, aka " Alfred the Butler" in the "Batman" series is the nasty critic who finds his snappy words the key to his separated spine, with Virginia Christine, the "Folger's" lady, as Hatton's first on screen victim.There's also a bit of comic relief with Bill Goodwin as the wise-cracking detective. Often, the mixture of horror and comedy is either ridiculously silly, an ingenious spoof, or off center in its Jekyll and Hyde personality. This is one film where it all works, causing me to highly praise it as being an excellent example of B films at their best.

***SPOILERS*** After being humiliated by #1 art critic the snotty and full of himself Holmes Harman,Alan Napler, struggling sepulcher & artist Marcel De Lange, Martin Kosleck, decides to end it all by jumping into the East River and drowning himself. When Marsel saw someone in worst condition then even he was in floating below he decided to help the poor guy and nurse him, together with his pet cat Peblo, back to health. As it turned out the person that Marcel saved from drowning is the notorious "Creeper", Rondo Hatton, who's been on a rampage murdering a string of young women, mostly hookers, all throughout the city of New York.Puzzled but grateful for what the very out of touch with the latest news Marcel did for him, way would anyone rescue a serial murderer like himself, a now fully recovered "Creeper" decides to do what Marcel didn't have the guts to do himself. Take care of all those art critics like Holmes Harman who've been making his life a living hell by putting down his great, in his mind, works.At first Marcel doesn't realize what the "Creeper" was doing but as he read the newspaper reports of his exploits, murdering art critics who disgrace him and his art, he encouraged him to keep up the "Good Work". As it soon turned out the "Good Work" resulted in Marcel making his masterpiece a bust of the "Creeper" himself!As it also soon turned out it was a woman newspaper columnist Jean Medford, Virginia Gray, who in fact was one of the few persons in the city who admired Marcel's work who lead to both his and the "Creeper's" downfall. That's by giving Marcel the publicity, in her column, that he really didn't need. It was that , Jean's column about his latest work, which in the end broke up a beautiful friendship, Marcel and the "Creeper", and thus finally putting and end to their reign of terror .P.S Rondo Hatton who's signature role as "The Creeper" was to make him famous in the world of horror movies died almost two months before the film "House of Horroes" was released at the age of 51.

Rondo Hatten plays the Creeper, who in this film is a notorious serial killer of women, breaking their backs with his huge hands and body. He is found nearly drowned in the river by frustrated artist/sculptor Marcel De Lange(played by Martin Kosleck) who takes him home, and they become friends(of a sort). Marcel tells the creeper about how much he hates the art critics who have trashed his work in their columns, so he takes this as a hint to murder them, as well as the occasional poor woman walking down the street... Exploitive of Rondo Hatton's unfortunate condition, film is also quite shallow, since no background or reasons for the murderous behavior is offered at all. Some good acting here(even Hatton isn't bad) but too one-dimensional.(though at least Marcel is nice to his cat!)

I'm talking about the famous cliché of trying to open the door but the doorknob gets stuck and the female lead cannot escape from the villain. This time it happened when the great Rondo tried to capture her!This isn't the generic monster-chasing the heroine. In fact, there's an interesting plot that deals with a mad sculptor gone evil because his work isn't "understood". So he is aided by the infamous Creeper who almost died in the previous film.The acting is solid and the fact that most of the situations center around The Creeper, demonstrate it that exploitation towards "strange" looking people has happened since "Freaks". Now, in the 40's it was considered as something "entertaining", "freak circus entertaining". Today it would be considered as something against good behaviors or something like that.Rondo delivers a fine performance and I truly enjoyed his evil lurking and walking. For example, the way we see his shadow slowly moving was creepy. The Direction is fine and classy. The low point of the movie happens when the events get kind of dull and hard to believe. Some corny dialogs and situations make it less entertaining and affect the suspense factor. Nevertheless, this is an interesting Universalesque feature that if not considered as a monster feature, it has all the characteristics to make us believe that Rondo was the main reason to watch this movie.The ending was very good. I liked how the bullet cracked the window and reached Rondo. Well, you have to watch it to believe it.