HOUSE OF HORRORS (1946)

Director: Jean Yarbrough

Writers: George Bricker, Dwight V. Babcock

Producer: Ben Pivar

Cast: Martin Kosleck, Rondo Hatton, Robert Lowery, Virginia Grey, Bill Goodwin, Alan Napier, Joan Fulton (aka Joan Shawlee), Howard Freeman, Virginia Christine 

New York starving artist Marcel DeLange (Martin Kosleck) is on the verge of suicide when he discovers an injured man pulling himself out of the river. Inspired by the bizarre and brutish features of the stranger, DeLange brings him back to his studio to use as the model for what he thinks will be a masterpiece of sculpture. DeLange soon finds out that his guest is none other than the Creeper, an infamous serial killer that snaps women’s spines. The artist realizes that his powerful new friend can perpetrate murderous vengeance against the art critics that have panned DeLange’s work. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

In the waning days of Universal Pictures’ horror film supremacy, they seemed to be trying to create a new horror star out of Rondo Hatton. Hatton was the actor that became camera worthy solely due to his affliction of acromegaly. This disease resulted in a distortion of his features that made him ideal for scary and brutal characters that required no special make-up. He had appeared in many films since 1927, but Universal first recruited Hatton to wring some horror out of a story as the Hoxton Creeper in the Sherlock Holmes movie The Pearl of Death (1944). He was so scary that he even managed to elicit real fear out of Basil Rathbone’s usually unflappable Holmes.

The opening credits of House of Horrors say “Introducing Rondo Hatton as the Creeper,” though it is certainly not Hatton’s debut film nor even the first time he played a character called Creeper. To be clear, this movie is not meant to be a sequel of any sort for the Hoxton Creeper character of the earlier Sherlock Holmes film, yet this story gives us no background about this fiend at all. He is simply pulled out of the river with no explanation of how he got there. We never even learn the Creeper’s real name or why he has the compulsion to snap women’s spines. Is he angered by their revulsion at his appearance? Is he just a frustrated chiropractor? I guess Universal thought that the Creeper being big, strong, and having a scary puss was all the reason he needed to be a murdering monster for the horror movie crowd. The Creeper character would go on to be featured in another Universal made movie called The Brute Man (1946) that some claim is a prequel to this film. Universal sold off that later production to the poverty row studio PRC.

Martin Kosleck, as the fiendish artist Marcel DeLange, is probably the real star of this flick. He certainly seems a sympathetic fellow for the first few minutes of this story. He is a lonely and unsuccessful artist that talks to his cat and can’t afford to pay his electric bill or buy any food. Then he has a much-needed sale of a statue thwarted by a snooty art critic (Alan Napier). Even after he rescues the Creeper from the river and nurses him back to health, DeLange seems solely interested in using the Creeper as a model for a new statue. It is only when the Creeper vents his murderous impulses on a streetwalker (Virginia Christine) passing by DeLange’s studio that the little artist becomes murderous himself. He knows that the Creeper will be his all too willing weapon. 

My favorite aspect to this rather perfunctory movie would be the lifestyle of Robert Lowery’s character, pin-up artist Steven Morrow. This successful and handsome guy paints pictures of sexy models all day with out smearing a drop of paint on his clothes or the floor of his swanky apartment. He also has a beautiful art critic girlfriend (Virginia Grey) to trade banter with over cocktails to celebrate his completion of each cheesecake masterpiece before he cashes the apparently generous check. This guy probably gave Hugh Hefner a few pointers. 

 

Unfortunately, Steve is a hothead with the bad habit of threatening to break the necks of art critics at the same time that another temperamental artist has his serial killer friend doing that very thing. However, the already abundantly blessed Steven Morrow also has the best timing in the world and miraculously avoids being charged with attempted murder. You’ve got to see it to believe it. 

If there is anything to ponder in this film, it is that it seems to be saying that the commercial artist plying his trade in a proven and popular field will be happy and successful while the fine artist striving for unique expression is doomed to fail. Not a bad observation, but it seems that the filmmakers also believe that the give-the-public-what-it-wants types deserve their good fortune and we should be wary of anyone giving us anything truly creative and original. This movie almost has it both ways; it is in such a hurry to dish out a fright flick for a quick buck to the undiscriminating horror crowd that it doesn’t take enough time or care with its rather novel plot to make its killer anything more than a deadly prop. That is probably why House of Horrors seems a bit half-baked in its execution, even though it has a unique artistic conflict for a horror story at its core. 

Uh oh! You don’t suppose the Creeper also kills movie critics, do you?