One reason to watch Paul Leni's 1927 adaptation of John Willard's 1922 stage play is to marvel at just how influential a film it is - the best of the four film adaptations of the play so far (this one, the one in 1930, the funny one with Bob Hope in 1939, and the 1979 movie) and inspiration for a zillion spin-offs and variations (The Black Cat, The Spiral Staircase, House on Haunted Hill, Haunted Mansion...) - and another reason to watch is that it is fantastic - an atmospheric German expressionist silent horror that makes great use of the cinetechnology of the day, spliced as it is with imaginative concrete poetry intertitles and shot with blue and yellow tones to distinguish the lit or unlit scenes, not to mention a handful of shots using a red tone for the creepy or alarming moments - afterall, it is a movie about a group of people trapped for a night in a mansion where they've gathered for a will reading and where they learn almost unbelievably that they are prey to a murderous lunatic somewhere in or around the house.
★★★★★
CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEW
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