History Film / HouseOfHorrors1946

* TheAlibi: The police do have a prime suspect, Steven Morrow, for the murder on Harmon, but he has two alibis.

* AndThereWasMuchRejoicing: Absolutely no artist mourns the brutal murder on Holmes Harmon. Quite the opposite: on the night of the murder Steven and a dozen colleagues are having a quiet party until two o'clock. That's when they learn of Harmon's death and that's when the party livens up instantly.

* DisposableSexWorker: Earlier, the Creeper escaped the police when they were after him for the murder on the "Dawson girl", likely a sex worker. Because it seemed the Creeper had drowned, the manhunt was ended. A week later, the Creeper, still alive, has recovered when he spots a sex worker looking for a customer in the deserted streets. He stalks her and murders her, ostensibly because she screamed but considering he had no money, the murder was pre-planned. Her broken spine tips off the police that the Creeper is still alive because it's the same way the "Dawnson girl" went. Of the six lives the Creeper takes during the film, theirs are of least importance and the only ones killed just because the Creeper could.

* SpinningPaper: There are three shots of a newspaper, each in response to the murder on Ormiston.

''House of Horrors'' is a Franchise/UniversalHorror BMovie that falls under both the {{Thriller}} and {{Horror}} genres and occasionally dips into FilmNoir territory. It is the first Creeper film and precedes ''Film/TheBruteMan'', which was made and released mere months later. In ''House of Horrors'', a near-bankrupt sculptor befriends the Creeper sincerely, but when he realizes that his guest is an accomplished murderer he molds him into a most useful instrument to deal with his enemies in a permanent fashion. Universal had high hopes for the Creeper series, but its star, Creator/RondoHatton, died on February 2, 1946. ''House of Horrors'', which premiered on February 22, 1946, is one of Hatton's three films released posthumously.

* FlashbackCut: While building up the courage to drown himself at the waterfront, Marcel recalls Harmon's cruel remarks about his latest sculpture earlier that night. Those remarks and the sale they prevented are why Marcel's opting for suicide.

Marcel [=DeLange=] (Martin Kosleck) is a commercially unsuccessful sculptor of the grotesque. After the art critic F. Holmes Harmon (Alan Napier) personally sabotages the sale of his latest creation, Marcel is ready to commit suicide, but his outlook changes when he saves a disfigured man (Creator/RondoHatton; Ed Cushing as stunt-double). Marcel sees beauty and takes him in as the model for his next project. A week later, he learns that his muse is the Creeper, a serial killer, and subtly mentions the problems Harmon and his colleague Hal Ormiston (Howard Freeman) cause as well as their addresses. The Creeper murders them both. Because Harmon publicly disparaged the pin-up painter Steven Morrow (Creator/RobertLowery) that very day, the police investigation focuses on Steven and his fiancée Joan Medford (Virginia Grey), another art critic. Ormiston's death, which can't be their doing, gets them off the hook, but Joan obtains evidence that Marcel is in league with the Creeper and investigates. Marcel takes notice and urges the Creeper to go kill her, which leads to the death of Steven's muse Stella [=McNally=] (Joan Shawlee). Unaware that she's been found out, Joan visits Marcel to cover her tracks and gets trapped. She tries to argue that she's left the evidence with her colleagues, but Marcel improvises that he'll pretend ignorance and testify that the Creeper acted on his own initiative. Because the Creeper's return had gone unnoticed, he overhears Marcel's plan. He kills him in revenge and goes after Joan next, but is taken out by Police Lieutenant Larry Brooks (Bill Goodwin), who'd discovered Joan's evidence.

* LosingAShoeInTheStruggle: Joan always wears an overt 1940s hat and they're occasionally commented on. When she tries to flee from the Creeper while he's distracted, the hat she's wearing falls off, making for the only time in the film she's bare-headed.

[[caption-width-right:350:]]

Marcel [=DeLange=] (Martin Kosleck) is a commercially unsuccessful sculptor of the grotesque. After the art critic F. Holmes Harmon (Alan Napier) personally sabotages the sale of his latest creation, Marcel is ready to commit suicide, but his outlook changes when he saves a disfigured man (Creator/RondoHatton; Ed Cushing as stunt-double). Marcel sees beauty and takes him in as the model for his next project. A week later, he learns that his muse is the Creeper, a serial killer, and subtly mentions the problems Harmon and his colleague Hal Ormiston (Howard Freeman) cause as well as their addresses. The Creeper murders them both. Because Harmon publicly disparaged the pin-up painter Steven Morrow (Creator/RobertLowery) that very day, the police investigation focuses on Steven and his fiancée Joan Medford (Virginia Grey), another art critic. Ormiston's death, which can't be their doing, gets them off the hook, but Joan comes across evidence that Marcel is in league with the Creeper and investigates. Marcel takes notice and urges the Creeper to go kill her, which leads to the death of Steven's muse Stella [=McNally=] (Joan Shawlee). Joan visits Marcel herself and when he turns hostile informs him that she's left evidence of Marcel's involvement with the murders at the office. Marcel improvises that he'll pretend ignorance and testify that the Creeper acted on his own initiative. Because the Creeper's return had gone unnoticed, he overhears Marcel's plan. He kills him in revenge and goes after Joan next, but is taken out by Police Lieutenant Larry Brooks (Bill Goodwin), who'd discovered Joan's evidence.

* TheAlibi: The police do have a single suspect, Steven Morrow, for the murder on Harmon, but he has two alibis.
** Steven's first alibi is given by his fiancée Joan, who claims he was with her at the time of the murder. Steven actually has a genuine alibi of being at a party with a few colleagues, but Joan explains that the alibi is also for her because she visited Harmon the night he was murdered. Ultimately, the police never consider her because Harmon's spine was snapped and that's not something Joan would physically be capable of.

* AnalogyBackfire: Harmon looks down on Steven's artistic focus on sexy women, considering it a lazy appeal to the masses betraying no underlying talent. Joan defends Steven with an analogy of apple pie: it's simple and popular with the masses too but surely that doesn't make it worthy of vitriol. Harmon counters that that's true, but Steven's work focus isn't apple pie -- it's cheesecake.
* AndThereWasMuchRejoicing: Absolutely no artist mourns the brutal murder on Holmes Harmon. As Steven and Brooks discuss, on the night of the murder Steven and a dozen colleagues were having a quiet party until two o'clock. That's when news of Harmon's death came in and that's when the party turned rambunctiously.

* ChekhovsGag: When Joan has to postpone a date with Steven for later that evening, he asks her if he's supposed to wait for her twiddling his thumbs. Joan dramatically quips back that he shouldn't resort to something as awful as thumb-twiddling. When she fails to show up in a reasonable time frame, Steven calls her office to enquire about the hold-up. As no one knows where she is, Steven jokingly instructs the operator that would Joan show up to relay to her that he is on the verge of thumb-twiddling. Actually more worried than he lets on, the moment he ends the call he absentmindedly twiddles his thumbs. He's more than a little annoyed when he catches himself.

* TheDandy: F. Holmes Harmon is a tall, well-groomed, and foppish man evidently quite content with himself and his opinions of good taste. Though he might humor others, there's always emits a hint of disdain for everyone who isn't him.

** The first part of Stella's corpse Lieutenant Brooks spots and the only part the audience gets to see are here shapely legs while the rest is hidden behind a folding screen.

* FreakyIsCool: The Creeper became a murderer in the first place because of the constant rejection he faced over his disfigured face. He is therefore more than a little confused when Marcel asks him to be the model of his masterpiece, but also eager to accept and be treated with some humanity.

* HappilyFailedSuicide: After being insulted to his face and thwarted from making a much needed sale, Marcel resolves to drown himself. While he works up the courage at the waterfront, he spots someone else struggling not to drown. He rushes to help the man get up on shore and discovers that he has the face of "the perfect neanderthal man". Marcel is entranced and takes the man home with him to recover, having found in him his muse and with that a new will to live.

* KindheartedCatLover: Marcel is introduced alongside his cat Pietro, who is very well-behaved, makes heartstring-pulling little mews, and who receives lots of love from Marcel. It sets him up as truthfully a gentle and considerate soul in spite of the kind of distorted sculptures he produces. Marcel's affection for Pietro and later the Creeper sympathetically carries him through increasingly unsympathetic actions. As the story reaches its climax and the Creeper kills Marcel, a moment the former emotionally has trouble with, Pietro comes running downstairs meowing loudly. Upon Marcel's death, shots of the Creeper's mournful face are interspersed with Pietro investigating Marcel's hand for signs of life and when he can't find any, Pietro cuddles up to his dead master. It pulls Marcel's death from a just desserts to tragedy.

* LosingAShoeInTheStruggle: Joan always wears an overt 1940s hat and they're occasionally commented on. When she tries to flee from the Creeper while he's distracted, the hat she's at present wearing falls off, making for the only time in the film she's bare-headed.

* NeverFoundTheBody: When the Creeper's bullet-ridden body fell into the river, the police thought he was done for and stopped their manhunt, thinking his corpse would come up somewhere downstream. It didn't and when another murder victim is found with a broken spine just like the Creeper is fond of handing out, the police realize they've taken it too easy.

* OminousFog: While Marcel roams the streets to get to the waterfront to drown himself, a heavy fog lingers over the city.
* RefugeInAudacity: Joan is a suspect in the case of Harmon's murder because she was the last person to have seen him and she has a motive. Both times she's asked about the situation, she goes into a grand spiel about how she regularly goes around killing people and no one should think her capable of less. It gets her fiancé and Lieutenant Brooks off her back faster than if she had to explain anything about her last conversation with Harmon.
* ScreamingWoman: Both the sex worker and Stella scream when they come face to face with the large and disfigured Creeper. The sex worker dies without fight or flight while Stella at least tries to make a run for it until she reaches a locked door. By contrast, the female protagonist Joan does not scream and is much more competent in avoiding the Creeper. The male victims don't of the Creeper don't scream at all, either because the Creeper attacks from behind or because they lose their voice in fright.

** The marketing for ''House of Horrors'' itself makes a big deal about the Creepers' murder of women and emphasizes the danger artist models are in. Truth be told, only half his victims are women and only one of them is an artist model and her being a model has no bearing on her murder.

* SlowlySlippingIntoEvil: Marcel is genuine when he saves and takes in his "perfect neanderthal man", but when he learns that his guest is the Creeper, a wanted serial killer, things change. Marcel manipulates him into killing two art critics that take joy in cruel reviews and do harm to Marcel's career and therefore his ability to feed himself and the Creeper. So far, not indefensible, but Marcel grows colder, targeting a third art critic that actually is kind in her judgement but on to Marcel's involvement with the murders. When cornered, she argues that even if she dies the evidence she's collected will be found, at which point Marcel reaches his moral rock bottom and plans to pin the murders solely on the Creeper while using the publicity of the case to garner more interest for the bust he's made in his likeness.

* WeUsedToBeFriends: The Creeper never hesitates about a kill until it comes to Marcel. Marcel saved and nursed him when the Creeper was drowning after escaping the police. Marcel gave him a home and food. Marcel believes he is beautiful and treats him with humanity. When Marcel betrays him, or more specifically announces he'll betray him, the Creeper does not aim his hurt and anger at him, but at the bust Marcel sculpted in the Creeper's likeness. It is the bust that symbolizes the time they spent together and with which Marcel intends to make his breakthrough as a sculptor. It's when Marcel tries to stop him that a struggle ensues which ends with the Creeper murdering Marcel, something that he emotionally barely powers through.

''House of Horrors'' is a Franchise/UniversalHorror BMovie that falls under both the {{Thriller}} and {{Horror}} genres and occasionally dips into FilmNoir territory. It is the first Creeper film and precedes ''Film/TheBruteMan'', which was made and released mere months later. In ''House of Horrors'', a near-bankrupt sculptor befriends the Creeper sincerely, but when he realizes that his guest is an accomplished murderer he finds in him a most useful instrument to deal with his enemies in a permanent fashion. Universal had high hopes for the Creeper series, but its star, Creator/RondoHatton, died on February 2, 1946. ''House of Horrors'', which premiered on February 22, 1946, is one of Hatton's three films released posthumously.

The Creeper series was announced on November 8, 1944 when trades such as ''The Hollywood Reporter'' and the ''New York Herald Tribune'' reported that Ben Pivar had been given the task of renewing Universal's horror stable and that the Creeper series was the foremost project. The first film of the series was to be called ''The House of Horrors''. However, as early as December 16, the ''Showmen's Trade Review'' and others stated that the first film was to be titled ''The Brute Man''. This name showed up as the first film to be until around July, followed by the first mention of ''Murder Mansion'' on September 7. ''Murder Mansion'' is the mid-production name for ''House of Horrors''. It's possible that the three names were all tied to the same script, but it's also possible that there were arguments behind the scenes which film should be the first. In the end, ''House of Horrors'' became the first film, with filming starting on September 11, 1945.

Marcel [=DeLange=] (Martin Kosleck) is a commercially unsuccessful sculptor of the grotesque. After the art critic F. Holmes Harmon (Alan Napier) personally sabotages the sale of his latest creation, Marcel is ready to commit suicide, but his outlook changes when he saves a disfigured man (Creator/RondoHatton; Ed Cushing as stunt-double). Marcel sees beauty and takes him in as the model for his next project. A week later, he learns that his muse is the Creeper, a serial killer, and subtly mentions the problems Harmon and his colleague Hal Ormiston (Howard Freeman) cause as well as their addresses. The Creeper murders them both. Because Harmon more recently reviewed the pin-up painter Steven Morrow (Creator/RobertLowery) poorly, the police investigation focuses on Steven and his fiancée Joan Medford (Virginia Grey), another art critic. Ormiston's death, which they can't be their doing, gets them off the hook, but Joan comes across evidence that Marcel is in league with the Creeper and investigates. Marcel takes notice and urges the Creeper to go kill her, which due to a mix-up leads to the death of Steven's muse Stella [=McNally=] (Joan Shawlee). Meanwhile, Joan herself visits Marcel and he keeps her occupied until the Creeper may return. Joan informs him that she's left evidence of Marcel's involvement with the murders at the office, upon which Marcel declares that he'll pretend he was unaware and that the Creeper acted on his own initiative. Because the Creeper has returned by now, he overhears Marcel's plan. He kills him and goes after Joan next, but is taken out by Police Lieutenant Larry Brooks (Bill Goodwin), who'd discovered Joan's evidence.

In the era of [[MadScientist Mad Scientists]], ''House of Horrors'' takes the formula and pointedly applies it not to a man of science but to one of art. Marcel [=DeLange=] is as much alike to [[Film/Frankenstein1931 1931]]'s Dr. Frankenstein as the Creeper is to the Monster, with the bust of the Creeper being the symbolic creation. As a matter of fact, Marcel is so far removed from science that his atelier is picturesquely lit by candles because he can't afford electricity. In light of Universal's attempt to revitalize their horror branch, ''House of Horrors'' also is considered a response to the increasingly poor reviews of Universal's horror films in the years prior with a plot that [[TakeThatCritics goes hard against critics]].

The Creeper series was announced on November 8, 1944 when trades such as ''The Hollywood Reporter'' and the ''New York Herald Tribune'' reported that Ben Pivar had been given the task of renewing Universal's horror stable and that the Creeper series was the foremost project. The first film of the series was to be called ''The House of Horrors''. However, as early as December 16, the ''Showmen's Trade Review'' and others stated that the first film was to be called ''The Brute Man''. This name showed up as the first film to be until around July, alongside notifications that ''Murder Mansion'', a pre-production name for ''House of Horrors'', would be the first Creeper film. It's possible that the three names were all tied to the same script, but it's also possible that there were arguments behind the scenes which film should be the first. In the end, ''House of Horrors'' became the first film, with filming starting on September 11, 1945.

* MirrorCharacter: Marcel and the Creeper are placed against Steven and Stella. Marcel appreciates the grotesque and unsettling and so finds his perfect muse in the Creeper. Steven enjoys the kind of beauty exuded by a well-curved woman with a pleasing face and so Stella is his latest model. Both Marcel and Steven are disparaged by art critics for their opposite but equally dime-cheap subject choices, while their models are both sought by Police Lieutenant Larry Brooks: the Creeper for an arrest, Stella for a date.

%%* Symbolism: Cat aspect that didn't want to kill.

''House of Horrors'' is a fresh take on an old formula. In the era of [[MadScientist Mad Scientists]], Marcel [=DeLange=] is pointedly not one, being as much alike to [[Film/Frankenstein1931 1931]]'s Dr. Frankenstein as the Creeper is to the Monster but rather than a man of science he is one of art. In fact, Marcel is so far removed from science that his atelier is picturesquely lit by candles because he can't afford electricity. ''House of Horrors'' also appears to respond to the increasingly poor reviews of Universal's horror films in the years prior with a plot that [[TakeThatCritics goes hard against critics]].

%%* ScreamingWoman: Both the
%%* SerialKiller

** The marketing for ''House of Horrors'' itself makes a big deal about the Creepers' murder of women and emphasizes the danger artist models are in. Truth be told, only half his victims are women and only one of them is an artist model and her being a model had no bearing on her murder.

%%* WeUsedToBeFriends: While the Creeper never hesitates about a kill,

''House of Horrors'' is a Franchise/UniversalHorror BMovie that falls under both the {{Thriller}} and {{Horror}} genres and occasionally dips into FilmNoir territory. It is the first Creeper film and precedes ''Film/TheBruteMan'', which was made and released mere months later. In ''House of Horrors'', a near-bankrupt sculptor befriends the Creeper sincerely, but when he realizes that the Creeper is an accomplished murderer he finds in him a most useful instrument to deal with his enemies in a permanent fashion. Universal had high hopes for the Creeper series, but its star, Creator/RondoHatton, died on February 2, 1946. ''House of Horrors'', which premiered on February 22, 1946, is one of Hatton's three films released posthumously.

Of the few horror films Universal actually would produce for the remainder of the 1940s, ''House of Horrors'' and ''Film/SheWolfOfLondon'' are the strongest attempts to freshen up the horror output. In the era of [[MadScientist Mad Scientists]], Marcel [=DeLange=] is pointedly not one, being as much alike to [[Film/Frankenstein1931 1931]]'s Dr. Frankenstein as the Creeper is to the Monster but rather than a man of science he is one of art. In fact, Marcel is so far removed from science that his atelier is picturesquely lit by candles because he can't afford electricity. Conversely, ''House of Horrors'' also appears to respond to the increasingly poor reviews of Universal's horror films in the years prior with a plot that [[TakeThatCritics goes hard against critics]].

%%* StarvingArtist

%%* NightmareFetishist: ""Secede from Toll", "Haunts of the Dilemma".

%%* WeUsedToBeFriends:

* AndThereWasMuchRejoicing: Absolutely no artist mourns the brutal murder on Holmes Harmon. As Steven and Brooks discuss, on the night of the murder Steven and a dozen colleagues were having a quiet party until two o'clock. That's when news of Harmon's death came in and the party went on rambunctiously.
%%* CausticCritic: Holmes Harmon
%%* ContrivedCoincidence

* DisposableSexWorker: A week after his near-death experience escaping from the police, the Creeper spots a sex worker looking for a customer in the deserted streets. He stalks her and murders her, ostensibly because she screamed but considering he had no money, the murder was pre-planned. Her broken spine tips off the police that the Creeper is still alive because her death is similar to that of "the Dawson girl", one of the Creeper's earlier victims and presumably also a sex worker. Of the six lives the Creeper takes during the film, theirs are of least importance and the only ones killed just because the Creeper could.

%%* FlashbackCut:

* GiftedlyBad: According to Ormiston, Marcel is "the laughing stock of New York art circles" and the things Harmon and Steven say about Marcel back that up, while Joan's opinion sometimes is in his favor and sometimes politely not. Meanwhile, Marcel views himself as an unrecognized genius of the hewn horrific. He strongly believes that if all the incidental naysayers were silenced, the public would come to laud him.

%%* HatedByAll

%%* MirrorCharacter
%%* TheMuse
%%* NeverFoundTheBody

* ThatWasTheLastEntry: Harmon is murdered while writing a scathing review of Steven Morrow's work and calling out his colleague Joan Medford for trying to make him ease up on her boyfriend. Because Joan doesn't have the physique to go around snapping spines, the half-finished review leads the police investigation to focus on Steven until a second murder rules him out.

Marcel [=DeLange=] (Martin Kosleck) is a commercially unsuccessful sculptor of the grotesque. After the art critic F. Holmes Harmon (Alan Napier) personally sabotages the sale of his latest creation, Marcel is ready to commit suicide, but his outlook changes when he saves a disfigured man (Creator/RondoHatton; Ed Cushing as stunt-double). Marcel sees beauty and takes him in as the model for his next project. A week later, he learns that his muse is the Creeper, a serial killer, and subtly mentions the problems Harmon and his colleague Hal Ormiston (Howard Freeman) cause as well as their addresses. The Creeper murders them both. Because Harmon more recently reviewed the pin-up painter Steven Morrow (Robert Lowery) poorly, the police investigation focuses on Steven and his fiancée Joan Medford (Virginia Grey), another art critic. Ormiston's death, which they can't be their doing, gets them off the hook, but Joan comes across evidence that Marcel is in league with the Creeper and investigates. Marcel takes notice and urges the Creeper to go kill her, which due to a mix-up leads to the death of Steven's muse Stella [=McNally=] (Joan Shawlee). Meanwhile, Joan herself visits Marcel and he keeps her occupied until the Creeper may return. Joan informs him that she's left evidence of Marcel's involvement with the murders at the office, upon which Marcel declares that he'll pretend he was unaware and that the Creeper acted on his own initiative. Because the Creeper has returned by now, he overhears Marcel's plan. He kills him and goes after Joan next, but is taken out by Police Lieutenant Larry Brooks (Bill Goodwin), who'd discovered Joan's evidence.

%%* Memory moment:

%%* SexSells
%%* ShadowDiscretionShot:

Marcel [=DeLange=] (Martin Kosleck) is a commercially unsuccessful sculptor. After the art critic F. Holmes Harmon (Alan Napier) personally sabotages the sale of his latest creation, Marcel is ready to commit suicide, but his outlook changes when he saves a disfigured man (Creator/RondoHatton; Ed Cushing as stunt-double). Marcel considers him beautiful and takes him in as the model for his next project. A week later, he learns that his muse is the Creeper, a serial killer, and subtly mentions the problems Harmon and his colleague Hal Ormiston (Howard Freeman) cause as well as their addresses. The Creeper murders them both. Because Harmon more recently reviewed the painter Steven Morrow (Robert Lowery) poorly, the police investigation focuses on Steven and his fiancée Joan Medford (Virginia Grey), another art critic. Ormiston's death gets them off the hook, but Joan comes across evidence that Marcel is in league with the Creeper and investigates. Marcel takes notice and urges the Creeper to go kill her, which leads to the death of Steven's muse Stella [=McNally=] (Joan Shawlee), who happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Meanwhile, Joan herself visits Marcel and he keeps her occupied until the Creeper can return. Joan tries to reason that she's left evidence of Marcel's involvement with the murders at the office, upon which Marcel declares that he'll pretend he was unaware and that the Creeper acted autonomously. The Creeper, however, overhears this and kills Marcel. He goes after Joan next, but is incapacitated and arrested by Police Lieutenant Larry Brooks (Bill Goodwin), who'd discovered Joan's evidence.

2002 saw the launch of the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards, an annual award that honors journalism, scholarship and film preservation in the horror genre. The awards are named after Rondo Hatton and the physical awards are sculpted after the Creeper's bust in ''House of Horrors''.

%%* TheDandy: Holmes Harmon is a foppish

%%* FreakyIsCool
%%* GiftedlyBad

* SlowlySlippingIntoEvil: Marcel is genuine when he saves and takes in his "perfect neanderthal man", but when he learns that his guest is the Creeper, a wanted serial killer, things change. Marcel manipulates him into killing two art critics that take joy in cruel reviews and do harm to Marcel's career and therefore his ability to feed himself and the Creeper. So far, not indefensible, but Marcel grows colder, targeting a third art critic that actually is kind in her judgement but on to Marcel's involvement with the murders. When cornered, she argues that even if she dies the evidence she's collected will be found, at which point Marcel reaches his moral rock bottom and plans to pin the murders solely on the Creeper while using the publicity of the case to garner more interest for the bust he's made in his likeness. It's too bad for him that the Creeper overhears this part of the plan.

''House of Horrors'' is a Franchise/UniversalHorror BMovie that falls under both the {{Thriller}} and {{Horror}} genres and occasionally dips into FilmNoir territory. It is the first Creeper film and precedes ''The Brute Man'', made and released mere months prior. In ''House of Horrors'', a near-bankrupt sculptor befriends the Creeper sincerely, but when he realizes that the Creeper is an accomplished murderer he finds in him a most useful instrument to deal with his enemies in a permanent fashion. Universal had high hopes for the Creeper series, but its star, Creator/RondoHatton, died on February 2, 1946. ''House of Horrors'', which premiered on February 22, 1946, is one of Hatton's three films released posthumously.