Waste of time

one of my absolute favorites!

Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

Highly Overrated But Still Good

I can't enjoy this one, no matter how many times I see it.Made in 1946, "House of Horrors" came at the tail end of the horror film genre.There is hardly any entertainment value and so boring.Everyone is just going through the motions without making much effort.Rondo Hatton is in one of his last films appearances before his sudden death in 1947.

Maybe it was because my expectations were low, but saw this on "Svenghoulie's" show and enjoyed it as an old black and white creepy movie from the late 1940s just as a Saturday night sort of thing. Not great but had some especially bright spots and a pretty decent cast and storyline, and kept you wondering what the outcome would be right up to the end. I kept expecting the story to fall apart at some point as it usually does in the ones shown on this show, but it kept continuing to be fairly engaging and had some cultural references to the art world that kept it fun to watch. I liked the portrayal of art critics and the art theme, and fun to see the actor who played "Big Jim Champion" on "Circus Boy" in a lead role, along with the monster dude who was an interesting character and had an interesting life story outside of the movie. All in all, fun to watch if you like old movies from the '40s and just want to see something not too deep or demanding that might remind you of a past era you find yourself able to get lost in.

One of many 60-minute B-movie horrors that Universal churned out in the 1940's, House of Horrors remains one of the most fondly remembered due to the hulking presence of Rondo Hatton. Originally a journalist and apparently a handsome man, he developed acromegaly which began to disfigure him in adulthood. He started getting extra work and bit-parts as faceless thugs until he appeared as 'The Creeper' in the Sherlock Holmes film The Pearl of Death (1944). Universal planned a series of films starring Hatton as The Creeper, but after this and it's sequel The Brute Man (1946), he sadly died of a heart attack brought on by his disease. He was far from a good actor - he does little but grunt and talk in child-like speech - but his presence is undeniable, and probably saves House of Horrors from obscurity.Living alone in his rotting studio, sculptor Marcel De Lange (Martin Kosleck) is on the verge of selling his best work to a high-rolling collector. Unfortunately, the potential purchaser brings along notorious art critic F. Holmes Harmon (Alan Napier), who dismisses Marcel's work as a travesty, causing the sale to fall through. Penniless and on the verge of suicide, he spots a body wash ashore one night. The body is that of the Creeper, a known serial killer with the face of "the perfect Neanderthal," (as Marcel dubs him), so Marcel brings him home and nurses him back to health. Fascinating with his appearance, Marcel begins to sculpt the Creeper and exploit his blood-lust by setting him up to murder his enemies.At just 65 minutes, House of Horrors, also known as Murder Mansion and Joan Medford is Missing, doesn't demand much at all. This is a formulaic genre picture that manages to squeeze an extraordinary amount into it's slender running time, and remains suitably entertaining throughout. Kosleck, for all his ham-fisting, manages to inject a tragic quality into his character, at first humble and optimistic, and later hateful and blood-thirsty. But it's Hando that steals the film - his Creeper snaps a woman's spine just for screaming in a scene that more than hints at rape (a big no-no in the 40's). Though there's no background or personality given to the character, that lurch-like appearance more than compensates. A forgettable genre film that is certainly worth an hour of your time.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

I'm talking about the famous cliché of trying to open the door but the doorknob gets stuck and the female lead cannot escape from the villain. This time it happened when the great Rondo tried to capture her!This isn't the generic monster-chasing the heroine. In fact, there's an interesting plot that deals with a mad sculptor gone evil because his work isn't "understood". So he is aided by the infamous Creeper who almost died in the previous film.The acting is solid and the fact that most of the situations center around The Creeper, demonstrate it that exploitation towards "strange" looking people has happened since "Freaks". Now, in the 40's it was considered as something "entertaining", "freak circus entertaining". Today it would be considered as something against good behaviors or something like that.Rondo delivers a fine performance and I truly enjoyed his evil lurking and walking. For example, the way we see his shadow slowly moving was creepy. The Direction is fine and classy. The low point of the movie happens when the events get kind of dull and hard to believe. Some corny dialogs and situations make it less entertaining and affect the suspense factor. Nevertheless, this is an interesting Universalesque feature that if not considered as a monster feature, it has all the characteristics to make us believe that Rondo was the main reason to watch this movie.The ending was very good. I liked how the bullet cracked the window and reached Rondo. Well, you have to watch it to believe it.