Crimes at the Dark House (DVD Review)

Based on Wilkie Collins’ 1860 novel, The Woman in White, Crimes at the Dark House is firmly planted in the style of Victorian melodramas. In other words, it was dated even when first released, so enjoying the film as camp today is probably exactly how it was enjoyed in 1940. There is no doubt the movie was intended as much to make audiences chuckle as shiver, if not more so.

While no explicit bloodshed is shown, there is certainly a Grand Guignol sensibility at work, especially in the opening scene where Slaughter’s character drives a tent stake through a prospector’s head. Ouch! From there, our unnamed villain assumes his victim’s identity in order to take his inherited fortune. He does a decent job with the deception until a woman arrives on the scene, claiming to be the mother of the dead man’s illegitimate daughter. He also learns that he has inherited more debt than wealth, though an arranged marriage promises to keep him in dirty money.

To top it all off, the abandoned daughter has gone mad from rage at her missing father and has escaped from the asylum. With both his scheme and life at risk, Tod’s bloodthirsty impostor does what he does best, luring his enemies to a spooky old boathouse to meet their doom.

Slaughter has been described as the closest thing England’s film industry had to a Karloff or Lugosi in the ‘30s and ‘40s, but his acting style is so over-the-top that it makes even the most theatrical performances by Boris or Bela look like understated method acting in comparison. If he never actually twirls his mustache, Snidely Whiplash style, it’s the only trick in the book of bad guy clichés that Slaughter misses. He licks his lips lecherously when meeting a comely chambermaid, laughs maniacally during every killing, and gives cartoonishly contemptful sneers at anyone who gets in the way of his debauchery. At one point, as he leaves the scene of another murder, he even points and laughs at the watery grave of his victim, a la Nelson Muntz of The Simpsons. Slaughter is the hammiest ham I’ve ever seen grace the screen and it’s a great deal of fun watching the joy he clearly took in overacting to such a degree.

Slaughter was a veteran theatrical barnstormer, who played evildoers to the delight of people around England for decades, usually in similar throwbacks to Victorian melodrama. But apparently his popularity never crossed over to the “respectable” stage, and so it was in film. Already 50 when he made his screen debut, his movies were produced quickly and cheaply. Producer-director George King was behind many of his films and, though his talent can’t be judged by one film, he did solid work on Crimes at the Dark House. It’s largely stagebound material, but King enlivened it with subtle camera movements, climactic close-ups (often on Slaughter’s sinister, laughing face), and quick pacing. Don’t look for high style, but as basic storytelling, King got the job done.

Perhaps due to its low budget and “disreputable” genre, Crimes at the Dark House gets away with some things that you wouldn’t have expected British (or American, for that matter) film censors to allow at that time. Aside from the previously mentioned head-staking (the actual contact, of course, is not shown), there is a clearly implied wedding night rape, the murder of a pregnant woman, and Slaughter’s memorable threat to a blackmailer: “I’ll feed your entrails to the pigs!”

There are amusing contributions from the supporting cast, especially Hay Petrie (who looks like a cross between Lou Costello and Claude Rains) as the corrupt psychiatrist who earns that threat, but it’s Slaughter’s show all the way. Some will surely find his performance, well…a bit much. It’s their loss. As for me, I anxiously await catching up with the surviving Slaughter films, including his most famous performance in 1936’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

A warning for all demanding DVD devotees: I watched Crimes at the Dark House on a disc from Alpha Video, probably the country’s largest distributor of public domain films. Those familiar with the releases of this cheapie company are aware that the quality can range from acceptable to the unforgivably wretched, with a greater share probably falling into the latter category. As a longtime adventurer into the risky realm of the public domain, I found the disc watchable, but those used to pristine print transfers with excellent resolution may not be so forgiving. A second or third-generation duplicate of a print sold to television (it opens with a “Medallion TV Presents” logo), it’s a little too dark, has some very muffled audio, and wears its many scratches like a proud veteran.

Still, the film’s shadowy settings and gothic atmosphere survive intact. It would be wonderful if someone properly restored this obscure oldie, but that Alpha has made it available at all is worth a salute. The company may exist solely to grab a couple of bucks from unsuspecting drug store customers, but their library includes dozens (if not hundreds) of Poverty Row studio offerings and other vintage features that might otherwise never see the light of day in a crowded and competitive marketplace. And considering that their discs sell at some locations for under $4, the often lackluster presentation seems a bit less offensive.