After a car accident, a young American couple (David Manners and Julie Bishop) must take shelter in the home of a madman (Boris Karloff) and find themselves caught in the middle of a battle between him and an old adversary (Bela Lugosi).
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While most horror films of this period were odd mish-mashes of silence and sound, The Black Cat succeeds in being a completely integrated whole. The transitions, the tracking shots through empty spaces and the effective use of music all feel as fresh as anything generated today. And though I should hate it for demonizing modern architecture as it does, I cannot because of how revolutionary this was for the time. Rather than rely on easy scares by setting this film in the same old dusty Universal mansion set, they tried something different and generated scares in a completely new way. When you combine all these awesome stylistic flourishes with a truly creepy story about Satanism and torture what do you get? Craig's favorite Universal horror film! I've said it before and I'll say it again - we NEED a Criterion edition of this film! And I'm not alone in this opinion either. Until then, the entire film can be streamed on Youtube in a pretty acceptable transfer.
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