Hooptober XII 20/45
{9 decades: 1930s}

| In short: Rosebeef activism, pro-potato propaganda, a zero-tolerance policy towards flower arrangements and a pipesmoking proto-C-3PO as the OG backseat driver.
Queer-coded to the gills, but at an encryption level even your blue-collar uncle (whose TV diet was Sunday mass and DIY reruns) would deem monochrome fruit salad.

| This movie teaches us: Karloff sure made a career out of his pre-coffee stumbles. If only I could do the same.

| This movie also teaches us: In the 1930s, it was totally fine for a straight man to brag about how many men he smashed.

| This movie also teaches us: Melvyn Douglas’s character must have reincarnated a bird-faced colonel—the vocal resemblance is uncanny.

| This movie also teaches us: People say hook-up apps sped things up, but in the ’30s you could get engaged over the time it takes to smoke a fag (and flick it into a haystack). No nudes sent, no kisses, just nicotine and destiny. Methinks Gen Z’s been duped.

| Verdict: My hesitation towards The Old Dark House was unfounded. This tempestuous ’30s chiller is pure fun: spitfire dialogue, hag-drag histrionics, family intrigue, and banal objects dripping euphemistic tension.

A stormy cocktail of mystery and comedy.
House of Usher, Young Frankenstein and The Rocky Horror Picture Show might be its closest spiritual descendants— each inheritors of Whale’s sass-laden gothic parody, swathed in German Expressionist shadowplay.

It’s a well-documented fact that Belgians (myself included) have chocolate-coated, yeast-alocholic miniature fried potatoes for blood cells. Patriotism be damned, Ernest Thesiger’s Mr. Femm deserves credit for turning the humble spud into a forbidden fruit—gracefully, no less.

| Listed: Favorite first seen 2025.