The Undying Monster
Director: John Brahm
Year: 1942
Rating: 7.0
Unfortunately,
this horror film was given a title that reeks of low budget dross, but it
is instead a rather fine B film with great gothic sets and spooky atmospherics
- like Wuthering Heights if Heathcliff was a werewolf. That can be credited
to director John Brahm who was to make some other terrific B horror films
before he was primarily relegated to television later in his career - his
Twilight Zone episode "Time Enough at Last" is a classic of the show.
It strikes me as a shame that he never
really had an opportunity to tackle a more prestigious film as he creates
wonderful visuals and was cracking good at creating nervous tension in his
films - this one was just a prelude to The Lodger and Hanover House which
today are looked on with great respect. Brahm grew up in Germany where his
father was a very respected theater director and Brahm followed in his footsteps
opening his own theater - but he could see the writing on the wall when Hitler
was elected and escaped Germany with his actress wife, Dolly Haas. He ended
up working at Twentieth Century Fox but Zanuck took a dim view of Brahm after
he refused to direct a film - and threw him on this film almost as a punishment.
But it looked so good for its low budget that when The Lodger needed a director,
they remembered Brahm.
Running at only a little over 60 minutes,
Brahm has to zip his film along and he does - introducing the viewer to the
cursed Hammond family who have suffered from tragedy for generations - mysterious
deaths and suicides. Living there now are a brother and sister (played by
John Howard and the wonderfully named Heather Angel who starred together
in a number of Bulldog Drummond films as a romantic couple). In the large
gothic built house always shrouded in fog are two elderly creepy servants
(Halliwell Hobbes and Elly Malyon who you would recognize as character actors
in a second) who clearly know more than they are saying. And as a good scary
house needs there is a crypt in the basement and a secret room that is always
kept locked.
One night a woman is ravaged on the cliffs
on a frosty night by a beast of some kind and the brother is hurt trying
to protect her. Scotland Yard shows up in the form of actor James Ellison,
best known for being in Westerns. This is where the film falters - this takes
place in England turn of last century with all the actors speaking with proper
English accents except for Howard and Ellison who are as American as a gunfight
and not even trying to do an English accent. It is jarring in particular
with Ellison whose broad mid-western accent and acting is as subtle as a
bulldozer. Still the film even these many years later generates some nice
chills along the way.