House on Haunted Hill (1959)

Horror fans, turn off the lights and delight in all the macabre things - disembodied heads, antisocial party favours, ghosts, ghouls, acid baths, skeletons and magic ropes - that turn up in the House on Haunted Hill, the murder-site-for-party-hire where Vincent Price's Frederick Loren invites five guests to stay - no, challenges them to survive! - over the course of one grisly night and one ludicrous plot!

★★★☆☆

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The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939)

It is still good fun but Sherlock Holmes is not at his best in this second of the fourteen Basil Rathbone-Nigel Bruce movies and in fact spends most of the 80-minute runtime being taken for a fool by his arch-rival Professor Moriarty - he brings to mind Frasier here the way his ego leaves him looking a fool - but even worse, when in the final moments he finally twigs and realises what we the audience have known all along from the very beginning, his out-loud logic to a bewildered Watson brings to mind the sort of childish panto one hears between Adam West's Batman and Burt Ward's Robin!

★★★☆☆

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