Film / House of Horrors (1946)

The Meet-and-Creep got way out of hand.

"Pietro, my greatest work is halted. A meddling girl is planning to cause trouble just as I am about to give the world a deathless masterpiece. If only header here would strangle her. But perhaps my friend the Creeper has already taken care of that detail."

—Marcel DeLange

House of Horrors is a Universal Horror B-Movie that falls under both the Thriller and Horror genres and occasionally dips into Film Noir territory. It is the first Creeper film and precedes The Brute Man, 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, Rondo Hatton, 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 proto-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 (Rondo Hatton; 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 (Robert Lowery) 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 incapacitated by Police Lieutenant Larry Brooks (Bill Goodwin), who'd discovered Joan's evidence.

In the era of 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 1931's Dr. Frankenstein as the Creeper is to the Monster, with the bust of the Creeper symbolically taking the place of the monster's 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 goes hard against critics.

Because House of Horrors and The Brute Man were practically produced back-to-back, their credits largely overlap. The directing was handled by Jean Yarbrough, while Philip Cahn did the editing. This includes fitting several scenes of older stock footage in with the new footage. The film's touches of film noir are the contribution of Maury Gertsman.

57 years after its initial release, House of Horrors played a role in the founding of the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards. It is an annual award ceremony launched in 2002 that honors journalism, scholarship and film preservation in the horror genre. The event is named after Rondo Hatton and the physical awards are sculpted after the Creeper's bust in House of Horrors.

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This film contains examples of the following tropes:

• The Alibi: The police do have a prime suspect, Steven Morrow, for the murder of Harmon, but he has two alibis.
  • Steven's first alibi is provided 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 shortly before the murder. Ultimately, the police barely consider her because Harmon's spine was snapped and that's not something Joan would physically be capable of.
  • Joan's alibi falls through when the police learn that at the time of the murder Steven was at a party with a dozen fellow artists that all confirm he was with them. Of course, each of them hated Harmon and celebrated the news of his demise, so the police don't dismiss Steven as a suspect just yet because his colleagues would have reason to protect him.
• Analogy Backfire: Harmon looks down on Steven's artistic focus on sexy women, considering it a lazy appeal to the masses that betrays 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.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: Absolutely no artist mourns the brutal murder of 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.
• Bloodless Carnage: The Creeper kills by strangulation, so by far most of the film's violence is therefore bloodless. There are two times gun use is mentioned or occurs, but neither time blood is shown. According to the newspaper, the Creeper was hit by multiple police bullets before falling into the river, but no such injuries come up during his recovery period. The Creeper is also shot by Brooks at the end of the film and despite multiple clear shots of his body, no blood flows anywhere.
• Caustic Critic: F. Holmes Harmon and Hal Ormiston revel in the poetry of vitriol they get to pen down on the regular. That is their art, and they are very proud of it as well as of the hatred their columns earn them. Ormiston is a little kinder, willing to acknowledge talent beneath the actual output, but he and Harmon are very much two peas in a pod.
• Chekhov's Gag: 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 receptionist 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 rather exasperated when he catches himself.
• Creepy Mortician: The morgue attendant Jerry is positively cheery about the new corpse and the prospect of more work now that the Creeper, a serial killer, is suspected to not be dead after all.
• The Dandy: 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, a hint of disdain for everyone who isn't him perpetually emits from his person.
• Dead-Hand Shot: Three corpses are shown only by their limbs.
  • When the detectives discover Ormiston's corpse, the audience only gets to see it from the waist down while the rest is hidden behind kitchen furniture.
  • The first part of Stella's corpse that Lieutenant Brooks spots and the one part the audience gets to see are her shapely legs. The rest is hidden behind a folding screen.
  • Once Marcel is murdered, the only part of him the audience is shown is his arm, which his cat Pietro mournfully cuddles up against.
• Dirty Coward: When Marcel grabs for a knife to make Harmon and Samuels leave his atelier with haste, Harmon pushes Samuels between him and Marcel.
• Disposable Sex Worker: Earlier, the Creeper escaped the police when they were after him for the murder of 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.
• Dropping the Bombshell: Marcel tells Joan his life story up until the present, casually making a point that he now has a murderer doing his bidding. He goes from absentmindedly contemplating his change in fortune to threatening Joan directly as he says: "But now I fear no one. Not even you," revealing that he knows she stole the sketch of the Creeper from him and is now a threat to his business he'll see being taken care of.
• Dude, Not Funny!: Jerry the morgue attendant responds to the news that the Creeper is still alive and murderous with a joke that this means more work for him. The detectives are not amused and an awkward silence drops.
• False Reassurance: Marcel knows that Joan stole his sketch of the Creeper and therefore knows too much. The next time she visits, the Creeper is out and so he uses wine, his life story, and social etiquette to keep Joan at his atelier until his murder buddy returns. After a while, Joan tries to excuse herself by arguing that she's at risk of missing her deadline. Marcel reassures her that she'll "not miss her deadline."
• Flashback Cut: 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.
• Freaky Is Cool: The Creeper became a murderer in the first place because of the constant rejection he faced over his disfigured face. He is therefore very confused when Marcel asks him to be the model of his masterpiece, but also eager to accept and be treated with some humanity.
• Giftedly Bad: 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 doesn't like his work either but is open to the possibility that there's a niche for him. 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.
• Happily Failed Suicide: 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.
• Hated by All: Ormiston estimates that 90% of the New York art circles hate him and Harmon for their no-holds-barred critiques. They're fine with this because that's exactly the 90% they don't consider artists to begin with.
• In Medias Res: The Creeper enters the story as a well-established serial killer who had been presumed dead by the police when he fell into the river. The police forces themselves are introduced being miffed about the possibility that the Creeper survived after all.
• Jaw Drop: The Creeper follows a sex worker through the streets. She notices him, but only catches a few glimpses and thinks she's got herself a customer. She stops at a passage to engage him by asking for a light for her cigarette, but her jaw falls open and the cigarette falls out when she finally comes face to face with the disfigured man who's also clearly not having good intentions.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: 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 deed 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 shifts Marcel's death from just desserts to tragedy.
• Leaning on the Furniture: Lieutenant Brooks awaits Ormiston's return to his office while sitting in the critic's chair and propping his feet up on his desk. He does this to establish dominance and make Ormiston more likely to cooperate in a trap for Harmon's murderer where Ormiston will be the bait.
• Losing a Shoe in the Struggle: Joan always wears an extravagant 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.
• Menacing Hand Shot: When Marcel tries to goad the Creeper into killing Harmon, the Creeper provokes a more sincere moment out of Marcel when he asks if he dislikes Harmon. Marcel's reaction is framed by means of an advanced panshot. The opening shot lingers on Marcel's affronted face and stays in position when he jumps up. With his clawing hands held before his chest, he replies that he'd kill Harmon with his bare hands if he could. From here, the camera falls down to the table and flows over to the Creeper's hands as they're threateningly playing with clay to Marcel's explanation of how rotten Harmon is. The tirade simmers down as the camera moves up to the Creeper's understanding gaze.
• Mirror Character: Marcel and the Creeper are posited 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.
• The Muse: Marcel is entranced by the Creeper's strong and primitive-like features the moment he lays eyes on him and takes him home to be the model to his masterpiece. The Creeper is confused, but pleased and agrees to stay.
• Never Found the Body: When the Creeper's supposedly bullet-ridden body fell into the river, the police thought he was done for and stopped their manhunt, reasoning that 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.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Marcel has a thing for unsettling forms and subject matters. His sculptures are imposing, expressionist, and carry such esoteric titles as "Secede from Toll" and "Haunts of the Dilemma". And when he first lays eyes on the Creeper, he describes him as the "perfect neanderthal man" and asks him to be the model for his masterpiece.
• Ominous Fog: Marcel roams the streets to get to the waterfront to drown himself on a night on which a heavy fog lingers over the city.
• Refuge in Audacity: Joan is a minor suspect in the case of Harmon's murder because while she doesn't have the build to snap anyone's spine, she was the last person to have seen Harmon 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.
• Screaming Woman: 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 of the Creeper don't scream at all, either because the Creeper strikes from behind or because they lose their voice in fright.
• Serial Killer: The Creeper is a man wanted by the police for the murder of a woman, implicitly a sex worker, and the first victim he makes on screen is also a sex worker. When he murders the latter, he expresses resentment that she screams — at the sight of him and at all — and he later repeats his annoyance over screaming women to Marcel. No confirmation is given, but it appears that prior to being put to use ridding Marcel of his enemies, the Creeper went after sex workers as a means to take revenge on society for rejecting him for his disfigured looks.
• Sex Sells:
  • Steven Morrow makes a living painting pin-up art. The art critics frown at this lowbrow thematic choice, but Morrow lives well enough of it.
  • The marketing for House of Horrors itself makes a big deal about the Creepers' murder of women and emphasizes the danger artist models in particular 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 is irrelevant to her murder.
• Shadow Discretion Shot: For the murders on the sex worker and on Stella, the camera pans away to the shadows on the wall. They leave no ambiguity about the women's fates as their bodies go slack with the Creeper crushing down on their necks.
• Sinister Suffocation: The Creeper's favored murder method is strangulation, which he does with such strength that its effect is near-immediate and the necks don't necessarily stay whole.
• Slowly Slipping Into Evil: 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.
• Spinning Paper: There are three shots of a newspaper, each in response to the murder of Ormiston.
  • The first shows the front page of the Daily Register with the headline "Second Art Critic Murdered". The sub-headline reads "Hal Ormiston, Art Columnist, Slain". It's placed amidst articles on various subjects: "Here Are Tips on Points to Watch in Exhibition", "Dollar Rallies Against Foreign Exchange Units", "Baby Mastodon's Bones Dug Up in Bloomfield Hills", "Quin Memorial Award Winner to Be Named", "Two Oklahoma Convicts...", "Bills Affecting West Wait Capitol Action", "Captive of Thug Leaps from Moving Car; Robber Is Killed in Duel with Policeman", and "Factory Workers Benefit".
  • The second shows the front page of The Daily Register with the headline "Is This Monster Still Alive?". The sub-headline reads ""The Creeper," whose bullet-ridden body was last seen toppling into the river as result of police trap" and "New Crime Wave Recalls Monster Believed Dead". It's placed amidst articles on various subjects: "Bankers Advised to See Selves as Public Sees Them", "$97.000.000 Gain in Brokers' and Dealers' Loan", "Dope Convict's Parole Rocks Party Circles", "Woman Found Dead, Fire Murder Victim", and "Police Press Local Search for Runaways".
  • The third shows the front page of the Gazette Journal with the headline "Art Critics Ask Police Protection". The sub-headline reads "Fear Harmon and Ormiston Murderer". It's placed amidst articles on various subjects: "Survey on Pollution Advocated", "Ocean at Last Yields Its Gold and Its Silver", "Jury System Denounced", "New Library Dedicated", "Board Head to Speak", "Conference on Current Problems", and "Council to Vote on Park Plan".
• Starving Artist: Marcel DeLange is a sculptor with an affinity for unsettling and grotesque art. He is proud of his oeuvre, but critics and the public don't share his enthusiasm. Every day is one of budgeting and wondering if there'll be a next meal. The desperation of his situation drives him to suicide only a chance encounter with the "perfect neanderthal man" prevents.
• Stunned Silence: The Creeper confronts and murders Ormiston in his own kitchen while the police are waiting for a drink to be served in the living room. They would've come to his aid if they had known, but they didn't, because Ormiston was so terrified that no sound escaped him.
• That Was the Last Entry: 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.
• The Walls Are Closing In: Joan tries to keep the Creeper at a distance by hiding behind a wooden scaffolding. It works for a minute or so, but then the Creeper realizes he can push the scaffolding towards the wall and either squash her with it or force her out from behind it. Joan picks the latter.
• We Used to Be Friends: The Creeper never hesitates about a kill until it comes to Marcel. Marcel saved and nursed him when the Creeper nearly drowned 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.