utgard14 Struggling artist (Martin Kosleck) intends to kill himself but winds up saving the life of serial killer The Creeper (Rondo Hatton) instead. Afterwards, he sends The Creeper out to murder his critics. When another artist (Robert Lowery) is suspected of being the killer, his girlfriend (Virginia Grey) investigates and finds the clues lead to Kosleck and The Creeper. Nice cast, weak script. Alan Napier is fun as one of the critics. This is one of the lesser Universal horror films made at the end of their second horror cycle. It's mainly of interest for Universal completists and those interested in the disfigured Hatton. It's certainly better than Hatton's next (and last) movie, Brute Man.

kapelusznik18 ***SPOILERS*** After being humiliated by #1 art critic the snotty and full of himself Holmes Harman,Alan Napler, struggling sepulcher & artist Marcel De Lange, Martin Kosleck, decides to end it all by jumping into the East River and drowning himself. When Marsel saw someone in worst condition then even he was in floating below he decided to help the poor guy and nurse him, together with his pet cat Peblo, back to health. As it turned out the person that Marcel saved from drowning is the notorious "Creeper", Rondo Hatton, who's been on a rampage murdering a string of young women, mostly hookers, all throughout the city of New York.Puzzled but grateful for what the very out of touch with the latest news Marcel did for him, way would anyone rescue a serial murderer like himself, a now fully recovered "Creeper" decides to do what Marcel didn't have the guts to do himself. Take care of all those art critics like Holmes Harman who've been making his life a living hell by putting down his great, in his mind, works.At first Marcel doesn't realize what the "Creeper" was doing but as he read the newspaper reports of his exploits, murdering art critics who disgrace him and his art, he encouraged him to keep up the "Good Work". As it soon turned out the "Good Work" resulted in Marcel making his masterpiece a bust of the "Creeper" himself!As it also soon turned out it was a woman newspaper columnist Jean Medford, Virginia Gray, who in fact was one of the few persons in the city who admired Marcel's work who lead to both his and the "Creeper's" downfall. That's by giving Marcel the publicity, in her column, that he really didn't need. It was that , Jean's column about his latest work, which in the end broke up a beautiful friendship, Marcel and the "Creeper", and thus finally putting and end to their reign of terror .P.S Rondo Hatton who's signature role as "The Creeper" was to make him famous in the world of horror movies died almost two months before the film "House of Horroes" was released at the age of 51.

Scarecrow-88 Okay Universal chiller starring Rondo Hatton, returning as the Creeper, still snapping spines, this time at the motivation of a sculptor slowly driven mad by pretentious, nasty art critics who love to tear apart New York artists using their type writer as a means to diminish and destroy anyone they consider poor or devoid of talent (while also writing vitriol towards artists they simply don't like). Needless to say art critics like the F Holmes Harmon (Alan Napier), admiring themselves and their reputed opinions, even if the art community finds those like him detestable, who get the Creeper spine-snapping treatment, aren't exactly sympathetic victims we feel sorry for. At first French sculptor, Marcel De Lange (Martin Kosleck) is presented as a rather sympathetic figure, an impoverished artist in dire need of critical support so that he can sell some of his works just to buy food and pay rent for home and studio. After getting his work trashed by Harmon, convincing a potential buyer to not purchase a sculpture, De Lange considers suicide, seeing an injured Creeper appearing from a river in bad need of care. De Lange sees Creeper as an artistic triumph in the making and so a partnership is formed. Soon De Lange is doting on how he would like to tear Harmon apart with his bare hands with Creeper willing to oblige. But the Creeper is a psychopath who murders women so not only critics get their spines snapped and necks wrung. Robert Lowery is Steven Morrow, a commercial artist who had a beef (and altercation) with Harmon, dating a snappy, unflappable, and loyal art critic named Joan (Virginia Grey) whose voice is also respected in the city, her own column dedicated to the art scene. Joan is a supporter of De Lange despite the stigmatism his work suffers, described as something a lunatic would sculpt (perhaps true considering De Lange uses Creeper to kill and harm for him), but when she steals a sketch outlining the Creeper's facial features, he prepares to get rid of her before being connected to the killings ( a second critic is also murdered for comparing Steven's work to De Lange's, further belittling the sculptor's reputation, as if Harmon didn't do enough damage). Hatton's acromegaly again is well utilized, both as a sculptor's inspiration and as a hulking brute with longish fingers and rough features cornering smaller beauties and wimpy art critics, his shadowy silhouette on the wall portraying the result of his actions as the victims have nowhere to run and no strength to escape his clutches. Kosleck's manipulative madman, presented as pitiable and tiny, even shorter than Virginia Grey, I thought was a fun variation on Dwight Frye, using a powerful brute to do his handiwork. Bill Goodwin is Lt Larry Brooks, the investigator trying to catch the killer, terrorizing his streets. Lowery has "the wrong man" character, a "person of interest" to Lt. Brooks, due to his negative feelings for Harmon, who has to come to the rescue of his girl when she is in danger of being yet another victim of the Creeper. Some atmospheric moments with foggy streets and a memorable "movie monster" in Hatton who thinks he's found a friend in De Lange, but "House of Horrors", to me, was rather a bit too predictable and underwhelming overall..maybe I was a bit too excited entering my viewing of this movie. It just has lazy writing (not much depth in the scenario or the characters this time around), too, although the execution of art critics who use newspaper articles to demean those they have a distaste for, sometime out of pure meanness, might be met with audience celebration.

Dewey1960 HOUSE OF HORRORS (1946) comes at the very tail end of Universal's classic horror film cycle, following on the heels of 1930s box office blockbusters like Dracula, FRANKENSTEIN, THE MUMMY, THE INVISIBLE MAN and THE BLACK CAT. By the 1940s, however, the studio's established monsters had been relegated to a succession of sequels with mixed and varying results. Ultimately, as budgets shrank and the big stars like Karloff and Lugosi drifted off to other studios, Universal began producing very low budget (although generally very entertaining) B horror melodramas such as CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN, THE MAD GHOUL, and, most notoriously, HOUSE OF HORRORS. For many, this film was particularly repellent because its star, Rondo Hatton, suffered from a horribly disfiguring and ultimately degenerative disease called acromegaly. He appeared in a small number of cheap-jack horror thrillers, HOUSE OF HORRORS definitely being the best of the lot. In it he (again) appears as The Creeper, a deformed, deranged killer thought to have drowned in the East River after a police manhunt. He is, however, rescued by a suicidal sculptor named Marcel De Lange (wonderfully played by Martin Kosleck) who spots him in the river just as De Lange is about to take his own life. He brings the monster back to his skid row studio where he not only nurses him back to life but develops a strange, impenetrable bond with him. This bond extends itself into killing off a number of art critics (as well as sexy streetwalkers and models) who have denounced De Lange as a fraudulent disgrace to the art world by first strangling them then snapping their spines. Ultimately The Creeper and De Lange are outwitted and brought down by a girl newspaper columnist (Virginia Grey) and her pin-up artist boyfriend (Robert Lowery). A dim-witted cop (Bill Goodwin) provides little help at all. Despite the rather dismal reputation this film has, it is nonetheless an effectively atmospheric and peculiarly disturbing story, perhaps most accurately described as horror noir. Put aside whatever reservations you may have about this bizarre oddity and check it out.