The Black Cat - 1934

For movie night, we have a new theme: the Universal Monster series. Some of the movies don't have a typical monster, but we'll see what happens. Also, we're not watching a few of the ones listed. Abbott and Costello irritate me, so we aren't watching those. I'd be rooting for the monster to kill them, and I doubt that happens...

This movie is "suggested by the immortal Edgar Allan Poe classic." It has two icons of this genre, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. For the purpose of this review, I'm going to call them Boris and Bela. They had complex names in the film, and I wasn't paying much attention to whatever their names were.

Bela has been in prison for 15 years. Now that he's out, he's tracked down Boris to the place where the betrayal that resulted in his imprisonment happened. The man responsible, Boris, has built a strange house on the site. Unfortunately, a young couple is also on the trip due to a car accident. Side note: I'm a bit bummed no one decided to go back and retrieve the bus driver. Poor man.

Anyway, Bela is looking for his wife and daughter. Boris has a weird collection of women hanging in his dungeon (by their hair?) and one of them is the wife. Boris has married the daughter, but he's hiding her from the rest of the house and especially Bela.

The movie was maddening. Everyone in it was terrible. The best character was Peter. He was one half of the young couple and the best part. He only had the one moment when he was overpowered by the minion, but I'm going to attribute that to recovering from being knocked out. He even escaped from the circle room by himself.

His wife was one of those fainting, screaming women that annoy the crud out of me. Also, she 100% could have saved someone near the end but waited until he'd already been shot to clarify the victim had been trying to help. Boris's character was icky and evil. Bela was borderline. I feel like he could do some helpful things, and I'm not sure why he was hinging letting the couple go on a chess game.

Overall, I had a good time with this one. I know Bela had a phobia of cats, but I'm not sure why he had no issues stabbing one cat but not shooting another one. The way he reacted seemed a bit over-the-top, but I got some good laughs. There were some "eww" moments for sure, so the horror existed, too. It's not gory horror, and I had more laughs than uncomfortable moments. Pretty sure I'm not supposed to be laughing, but if I'm having a good time, what else is there to say? Good Movie!