Director: T. Hayes Hunter
Year: 1933
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
Having died from a mysterious ailment, a professor safeguards a valuable Egyptian artifact in his possession into death, but when the object is stolen by graverobbers, he rises from the dead to take revenge on those who have stolen it and forces them to stop his rampage.
Review:
This here turned out to be quite a decent if overall rather flawed early horror effort. When this one works, there's a lot to like here in regard to its atmosphere here during many of its confrontations which are decidedly creepy. This manages a few solid scenes early on where he's out on the streets stalking victims along the fog-filled alleyways of the city, through the unquestioned highlight is the resurrection in the crypt where the atmosphere of the situation aids nicely to the rather creepy action here with the moving coffin, his stumbling out and then chasing after the victim in the areas outside is quite impressive and really makes this enjoyable.
Other fun, creepy scenes come from the various attacks as he goes out to follow through on his quests for revenge as the attacks in the basement and upstairs in the different bedrooms where he manages to come across the special ring that causes him to be reborn that brings about the truly fun and exciting final half where there's plenty of great confrontations inside the tomb. From the energetic fighting that shows his upper hand to the rather frantic gunfights in the forest surrounding the tomb while the sparked fire from the fighting leads into the big burning-down-the-house finish that always loads up on the action that makes this one fun with such a rousing final half. Alongside his creepy look, these here do hold this one up over its few rather detrimental issues.
The film's biggest flaw here is the fact that there are plenty of scenes that go on far longer than they really should simply to eat up the running time here, as the opening scene of him giving out the burial rites in his bedroom, a later scene detailing the situation in the lawyer's office which goes on forever detailing every bit of the process at hand as well as the truly overlong and really insipid scenes where everyone arrives waiting to read his will which not only shows the family arriving but also the different relatives that show up which means the scene of them outside arriving as well as the basement meetups really just make for a really bland and stilted pace as this one drops off the horror during most of the first half to get there in while really going overboard later on. It's distracting and noticeable while affecting the film of the film by taking a while to get going without doing much else with it.
The only big issue here with the film comes from the quick, abrupt ending that really seems like a shock with all the action leading up to it only to then suddenly see it end without giving it much of a chance to feature more before it comes to an end. The darkness during some of the scenes makes it hard to tell what's going on at times, but it's not as big an issue as these other factors considering the film's age, and overall the others make for more detrimental issues that hold this down.
Overview: ***/5
Troubled if still highly enjoyable Classic Horror effort, there's a lot to like here which manages to hold this one up for being a solid old-school genre effort. Those who appreciate this kind of older genre fare or are fans of the creative crew will have a lot to like here while most others that don't appreciate these factors should heed caution.
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