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4.8/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 4.8/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. The Horror remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
Look, unless you are a certified weirdo who loves dusty, barely-coherent films from the dawn of sound, you should probably avoid this. But if you live for cheap 1930s trash, The Horror is kind of a goldmine. 🍿
It is basically about a girl trapped in a creepy house with a murderer and some sort of ape-like monster. It makes absolutely no sense, but that is half the fun.
Let’s talk about this ape. It looks exactly like a guy wearing a dirty rug who got lost on his way to a Halloween party.
At one point, the ape-man just kind of wanders into a room, waves his arms around, and then leaves. Nobody seems to know why he is there, not even the director, Bud Pollard.
Pollard actually stars in this too, playing a guy who spends most of his time looking extremely confused by his own plot. It has that same chaotic, low-budget energy you find in Africa Squawks, just with even less money behind it.
The audio in this movie is something else. There is a constant buzzing noise that sounds like a very angry fly died inside the microphone.
Also, the sound effects are ridiculously loud. When someone walks across the room, it sounds like they are wearing concrete boots on a wooden stage.
If you have ever sat through the stiff melodrama of The Girl in His House, you know how awkward early talkies can be. But this one takes the cake for sheer, unpolished clunkiness.
"I am pretty sure I saw a shadow of a crew member’s head on the wall during the big climax."
The heroine screams a lot, but her screams sound less like she is terrified and more like she just stepped on something wet in her socks. It is amazing. 😂
The whole climax is shot in near-total darkness. I think they only had one working lightbulb on the entire set that day.
It is a complete mess, but it is the exact kind of disaster you want to watch with friends at two in the morning.
