Hallo-Watch: The Ghoul (1933)

Watched:  10/10/2024

Format:   Amazon Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  T. Hayes Hunter

Well, they can't all be winners.

The movie is probably more interesting for it's goofy history than the movie itself, which is disappointing on almost every level if you're looking for good old-fashioned Halloween fun, but I suppose it's a great movie if you think cousins should hook up by a film's ending.

The story is unnecessarily convoluted, but the spaghetti mess doesn't reveal itself until the very end, and up til that point, it's mostly skulking.  So much skulking.  Sometimes someone skulking after someone who is, in turn, skulking after someone else.  It's crazy.  And a waste.  We have Karloff, who only did the movie because he and Universal were in a spat, and all they gave him to do was wander around dressed like a grandpa after church and wear some iffy make-up. 

The plot is:   there's a supposedly mystic artifact that will allow the Egyptian god Set to take you to Egyptian Heaven?  And Karloff spent his fortune on it just before passing.  Now, everyone wants the amulet, and so a manservant has it for a minute, he gives it to Karloff's estranged niece, who runs into her estranged other cousin, Rafe.  There's Egyptians looking for the thing.  A comedy lady.  A pastor.  And skulking.

And I shouldn't have to say, look, your cousin has great hair, and that's how a wave was supposed to look in 1933, but you still should stop touching her.

The big let down is that it's a movie that has been about mysticism and dark magic, and then at the end, they explain everything away as a series of coincidences, misdiagnosed maladies, scam artists, etc... that all *happened* to line up to make it seem like Karloff came back from the dead and was lumbering around.  Which, I do not need to tell you, absolutely sucks.  Don't do this.

What is good:  

Well, the set and lighting and visuals are all amazing.  No notes.  Loved that.  I liked the funny lady swooning over the Egyptian who is, in turn, absolutely bullshitting her.  And..  yeah.  That's about it.  I liked that it had Ernest Thesiger, because he's one of my favorite parts in one of my favorite films in The Bride of Frankenstein, and I'd never seen him in anything else.  And I don't feel guilty pointing out star Dorothy Hyson is cute since Rodgers and Hart wrote The Most Beautiful Girl in the World about her.  

I don't really know why I've seen this movie cited as "see The Ghoul sometime" but now I wonder if they meant the much later movie called The Ghoul, and I just clicked on the wrong one.

Just watch The Old Dark House.  It's a better movie.