Coming off the success of Dracula and Frankenstein in 1931 and The Mummy earlier in 1932, Universal took another stab at horror (albeit without a titular monster) in The Old Dark House. We open on a married couple driving through a rain storm with their friend, who is inexplicably singing in the back seat. Driving becomes impossible and there's a mudslide on the road, so they walk to an old dark house for shelter. They're met at the door by a mute, hairy, disfigured butler (played by Boris Karloff) and the house's owners--an elderly brother and sister. 

After reluctantly agreeing the three visitors can stay the night, the brother regularly references how scared he is and the sister, who is hard of hearing, talks doom and gloom constantly. Awkwardness ensues. Later, another couple arrive at the house--an aloof chorus girl and a rich, loud, and boorish man.

The lights go out and the sister encourages the brother to go upstairs and get a lamp, but he's too scared to go alone. When the husband joins him, they head upstairs where the brother continues complaining about how scared he is. The husband goes alone and notices a padlocked room. Meanwhile, the chorus girl and the friend head to one of the cars to get some booze, and the sister and the boor leave the wife alone while they go to shut a window together.

For some reason, the butler uses this as an opportunity to attacks the wife, but he gets knocked out by the husband.

Meanwhile, at the car, the chorus girl and the friend--who met moments ago--profess their love for each other. They head back to the house, where she tells the boor that she's in love with the friend. The boor calls her a lunatic but says he isn't angry. The friend secretly tells the boor he intends to ask the chorus girl to marry him in the morning. I can't overstate how outrageous this all is--the friend literally just met the boor and the chorus girl, whom he intends to marry. 

In another part of the house, the husband and wife enter a room and find an ancient man in a bed--the brother and sister's father. The father tells of his eldest son, who wants to murder and destroy everything with fire, and so is kept in the padlocked room. This pyro son is released by the butler. The butler then attacks everyone and the pyro tries to set the house on fire.

It's all in vain as the visitors fend off the butler's attacks and kill the pyro. Unfortunately, the friend gets knocked out and injured in the process. By morning, the storm has passed, the house is intact, and while the others leave to find medical help, the friend asks the chorus girl to marry him. She seems to agree.

The end.

What a weirdly charming and creepy film. The old brother and sister look strange--he is so gaunt as to appear skeletal, and she plays the old crone well. The role of the ancient father is played by an old woman, which is an odd and lovely choice. Karloff is great as the butler. The people, though all individually one-note, each strike a different chord. This movie sets out a formula that Hollywood repeats to this day. Moreover, some techniques--a scene showing the wife and sister's misshapen reflections in bent mirrors when the sister is talking; another where the chorus girl's and sister's shadows interact wordlessly; and parts with off-screen cackling laughter --add to the creepy ambiance. The romance is ridiculous, of course, but that hardly matters as it's window dressing. This is a picture totally worth watching, and it's available free on YouTube.

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