The Old Dark House brought macabre humor to early horror

Director James Whale was on a tear for the first half of the 1930s, directing three of the very best Universal monster movies: Frankenstein (1931), The Invisible Man (1933), and Bride of Frankenstein (1935). During that run, he also made The Old Dark House (1932), which isn’t quite so famous, on account of being out of circulation for several decades, and eventually thought lost. Now a restoration and the rise of free streaming has made it one of the era’s more perpetually accessible classic horror movies. Though it’s more overtly comic than Whale’s monster movies, where the humor is more macabre, it’s nearly their equal in mixing gothic atmosphere and memorably strange, often funny characters.