Screen/Society--"The Old Dark House" (James Whale, 1932)

Film Screening:

"The Old Dark House" (James Whale, 1932, 75 min, USA, B&W, DCP)

Presented in a dazzling restoration, this Pre-Code horror classic gives creepy-house conventions a wild and unpredictable spin, laced with black humor, sexual perversity, and expressive stylistic flourishes. The plot details a group of travelers seeking shelter from the pounding rain in a creepy old mansion inhabited by the Femm family. You know what comes next... Directed by James Whale and starring Melvyn Douglas, Charles Laughton, Gloria Stuart, and Boris Karloff.

"Whale mixes a quasi-realistic atmosphere (his monsters are decidedly human, his guests ever so civilized) with high Hollywood Gothic: a tremendous thunderstorm, swirling roads, and the eerie house with its Chinese-box series of horrors." - Pacific Film Archive

"The greatest of all horror films. Nothing better in this vein has ever been done, before or since." - Classics of the Horror Film