The Black Cat

Pre-Hays Code, post-talkie movies is such a fascinating period of film for me. It's this narrow band of movies that were able to embrace the biggest revolution in movie production since its inception, but were also free from the confines of censorship and content restriction. Movies were downright transgressive in this period, more so than they'd be for another 30 years; criticism of hallowed institutions, nudity and uncompromised sexuality, even things like making bad people the protagonist of the movie. All these options were available until the Hays code slammed the door shut with puritanical restrictions that thought the public couldn't handle people kissing "passionately". No genre is more set to capitalize on transgression and that freedom of content like horror. Released right before the Code came down, The Black Cat is a short (61 minutes) but effective classic horror movie that is brimming with atmosphere, feels bleeding-edge for the time, and is anchored by two icons of horror. The movie starts by setting up that we're following a pair of newlyweds on a train to their honeymoon destination. Their room gets double-booked by accident, and they meet a Hungarian doctor, who is on his way to visit a friend that is in the same direction they're going. A car accident results in them having to take the wife to this friend's house to recuperate, and it is there the real story unfolds. There is a deep rivalry between the doctor and the house's owner, a reclusive architect. The doctor and the architect served in WW1 together for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but the architect betrayed their regiment, who occupied the fort upon which the architect's house is built, to the Russians. The doctor was imprisoned for 18 years, and now he's back and out for revenge, and the honeymooning couple is caught in the middle. If I need to tell you this movie is absolutely overflowing with atmosphere, then what are we even doing here. Surprisingly, though, it isn't a gothic feeling like so many other Universal horror movies of the era. The architect's house (played by Boris Karloff) is art deco, giving the place a creepy, sterile, uneasy feeling. The Black Cat was one of the earliest movies to have a constant, omnipresent score, and that helps maintain and develop the mood the movie is aiming for; an overwhelming, but hard-to-pin-down sense of foreboding and dread. Then you add in all the transgressive elements -- the mental chess games between the two leads, elements of necrophilia, and overt references to a Satanic cult all come together to create a fantastic forebearer for psychological horror. The monster here isn't some otherworldly demon or a beast incarnate; it's a human being. A cold, calculating, warped human being. I mentioned before that two icons of horror are in this. Karloff, I mentioned; the other is Bela Lugosi. They are most famous for their turns as Frankenstein's monster and Dracula, respectively, and while both of them did great in those roles, neither had much depth or range. If you thought they were limited to broadly drawn characters, this movie will put that doubt to rest. Karloff and Lugosi are riveting, slowly peeling back layers of their characters, all the while trying to maintain a gentlemanly attitude towards one another even though they live to see the other dead. Every scene they have together is a treasure and is worth watching The Black Cat all on its own. There's a few things holding this back from being even a higher score. The first is the honeymooning couple. Neither of them have much to do here; definitely the wife more than the husband (it's how movies rolled back then), but both come up lacking in agency. The bigger issue is the length; at 61 minutes, there's just not enough movie. This is a movie that could absolutely benefit from a remake, if for no other reason than to expand on the run time and let the movie breathe. I could see Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart in the leads. Even though it's too short, that's no reason to skip out on this. There is still so much classic horror atmosphere to soak up, and two legendary actors sparring like Ali and Foreman. They don't make 'em like this anymore, and they damned well should.