The Spiral Staircase (1945)
Directed by Robert Siodmak
Director Robert Siodmak had already dipped his foot in the Horror Film with Lon Chaney Jr. in Son Of Dracula (1943), and he would soon be known as a talented maker of Film Nior with films like The Killers (1946), and Criss Cross (1949), but The Spiral Staircase is a minor masterpiece Old Dark House style Horror.
Helen is a young woman who works as a domestic at the Warren house. She has been unable to speak since a traumatic event in her childhood. While she's attending a movie on in town, a woman in the hotel where the movie is being shown, is murdered by a madman. This is the third recent murder, and all the women killed had some sort of affliction. The local constable warns Helen that she should go straight home before it gets dark. On the way she's followed by a mysterious figure.
When she reaches the Warren house we're introduced to the various members of the dysfunctional household. There's Albert, the ineffectual head of the house, his philandering brother Steven, their invalid mother, and the various scheming servants. The Police come by to warn that the killer has been tracked to the area, but we have reason to believe that in fact he's gotten in the house. As a thunder storm rages we watch as long simmering resentments boil over into accusations, conflict, and eventually murder.
This is a terrific thriller, with a wonderful cast, and an incredible set. The Warren house is almost another character in the film, filled as it is with shadows and secrets. The set had been built a few years earlier for Orson Welles production of The Magnificent Ambersons, and Robert Siodmak uses it masterfully. Siodmak also makes good use of techniques that would later go on to become powerful tools in Horror Cinema, such as using the camera to simulate the killers point of view, and a focus on the gloved hands of our unknown killer. Both, but especially the focus on the gloved hands would become hallmarks of the Giallo twenty years later.
This is both a great Old Dark House film, and a particularly potent pre-Psycho murder Thriller. I can't recommend it enough.
Helen is a young woman who works as a domestic at the Warren house. She has been unable to speak since a traumatic event in her childhood. While she's attending a movie on in town, a woman in the hotel where the movie is being shown, is murdered by a madman. This is the third recent murder, and all the women killed had some sort of affliction. The local constable warns Helen that she should go straight home before it gets dark. On the way she's followed by a mysterious figure.
When she reaches the Warren house we're introduced to the various members of the dysfunctional household. There's Albert, the ineffectual head of the house, his philandering brother Steven, their invalid mother, and the various scheming servants. The Police come by to warn that the killer has been tracked to the area, but we have reason to believe that in fact he's gotten in the house. As a thunder storm rages we watch as long simmering resentments boil over into accusations, conflict, and eventually murder.
This is a terrific thriller, with a wonderful cast, and an incredible set. The Warren house is almost another character in the film, filled as it is with shadows and secrets. The set had been built a few years earlier for Orson Welles production of The Magnificent Ambersons, and Robert Siodmak uses it masterfully. Siodmak also makes good use of techniques that would later go on to become powerful tools in Horror Cinema, such as using the camera to simulate the killers point of view, and a focus on the gloved hands of our unknown killer. Both, but especially the focus on the gloved hands would become hallmarks of the Giallo twenty years later.
This is both a great Old Dark House film, and a particularly potent pre-Psycho murder Thriller. I can't recommend it enough.
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