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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 Mystic Hour remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you love dusty, forgotten 1930s crime flicks with creaky floors and weirdly slow fistfights, The Mystic Hour is worth an hour of your life. Anyone else? You will probably get bored in five minutes flat. 🥱
The whole thing feels like it was filmed in a basement over a single weekend.
Our main guy stops a robbery and suddenly he is fighting both a crime boss and some sketchy guardian who is keeping the girl he loves away. It is a lot of plot for a movie that is barely an hour long.
Honestly, the best part is seeing Charles Middleton. He has this face that just screams "I am up to no good."
There is a moment early on where a guy gets knocked out. The punch clearly misses by at least three inches, but he still falls down like a chopped-down pine tree. 🌲
It reminded me a bit of the cheap setups in Bringing Home the Bacon, though maybe with slightly less energy.
The sound quality is pretty rough too. Sometimes it sounds like they are talking inside a giant metal tin can.
And we have to talk about Fred 'Snowflake' Toones. His comedy bits are... well, they are very much of their time, and they do not age well at all. It makes you cringe a little bit.
But Montagu Love is always a treat to watch. He brings a weirdly serious energy to a movie that clearly does not deserve it.
During one scene, a character stands near a window and you can see the shadow of the camera crew moving on the wall. It is those little mistakes that make these old movies so fun to watch.
If you are expecting something like The Fighting Hope, you might be disappointed. This is much cheaper and more chaotic.
But hey, it is short. It gets in, does its weird little crime story, and gets out.
Sometimes that is all you really need on a lazy Sunday afternoon.