YMMV / The Hound of the Baskervilles

• Complete Monster:
  • Original story: Jack Stapleton, real name Rodger Baskerville, wins the trust of the Baskervilles family while using an abused, trained hound to simulate the dark legend of the Hound of the Baskervilles. Terrifying family patriarch Charles to death, Stapleton uses his own wife Beryl as a Honey Trap for Charles's nephew Henry, viciously abusing Beryl to force her under his control. Murdering a convict with the Hound that he mistakes for Henry, Stapleton later beats Beryl to keep her from interference and sends his beast to murder Henry to claim the family estate, even callously feeding the family doctor's little spaniel to the Hound and stopping at nothing to satisfy his cruel greed. It's almost as an afterthought that Holmes mentions he was most likely the guy who gunned down a page boy who interrupted a burglary.
  • 2002-2003 Made-for-TV Movie: Jack Stapleton, even more wicked than his original incarnation, wins the trust of the Baskervilles family while using an abused, trained hound to simulate the dark legend of the Hound of the Baskervilles. Terrifying family patriarch Charles to death, Stapleton uses his own wife Beryl as a Honey Trap for Charles's nephew Henry, viciously abusing Beryl to force her under his control. Murdering a convict with the Hound that he mistakes for Henry, Stapleton later sends the Hound to savage Henry and, deciding he cannot trust Beryl, murders her himself before killing an officer and attempting to murder Holmes and Watson in order to flee.
• Franchise Original Sin: The 1939 Hound marks the start of Nigel Bruce 's tenure as Dr. Watson, a portrayal that gets quite a bit of flak for ingraining the image of Dr. Watson as a doddering old buffoon in the popular imagination. While Watson is played more for comic relief here, he's still a competent doctor and displays some observational skill both here and in the sequel The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939). It was really the Universal films that would flanderize him into the sort of The Load who would blow his nose on a clue and throw it away.
• It Was His Sled: There's a reason the trope page doesn't even try to pretend that these days it's a shock that the dog isn't actually a Hell Hound or that Jack Stapleton and his 'sister' Beryl are in fact husband and wife.
• Moment of Awesome: For the Hound itself, surprisingly, in the 2000 film adaptation. Having been abused by Stapleton (even being blinded so that it had to rely on scent to be a more effective killer) for god knows how long, it corners him at the edge of the Grimpen mire before turning on him, attacking the man who turned the poor dog into a monster and driving him into the mire where he drowns. Also could count as a Tear Jerker since the hound meets the same horrible fate as its abuser.
• Nightmare Fuel: Legend or not, the hound itself is certainly horrific.
  • And the legend itself, as told by Dr. Mortimer.
  • In the 2002 adaptation, the Grimpen Mire is fully shown. And it's one of the most unpleasant places EVER in Holmes media, as seen in the scene where Selden barely escapes being engulfed by the quicksand but a policeman chasing after him isn't half as lucky.
  • In the Granada version, we actually see Stapleton's death (it's only implied in the book) as he screams desperately for help until he sinks beneath the surface of the mire. It is as horrible as it sounds.
    • Two earlier adaptations - one in 1968 and another in 1983 - actually topped it by having Stapleton's death not only on-screen in a similar manner, but transpiring right in front of Holmes and Watson. In the latter case, Holmes even attempts to Save the Villain, but fails.
• Questionable Casting: The 2002 adaptation gets some bafflement for casting Richard Roxburgh as Holmes instead of Richard E. Grant who was instead cast as Stapleton. The producers apparently thought him "too obvious", which had a couple of reviewers questioning how that was a bad thing. It's telling that Roxburgh's performance is generally considered one of the weaker elements of the film while Grant is considered one of the best versions of Stapleton.
• Values Dissonance: The whole rant by Dr. Mortimer about different craniums comes off as very racist in the eyes of new fans. It's completely cut from the 2002 movie, for example. In the book, Watson (a trained medical professional, mind you) privately thinks phrenology is bunk and that Mortimer's ideas are silly. However, phrenology's specific association with virulent scientific racism had not developed yet, and Mortimer's rambling was meant to show him as an eccentric, humorous character rather than an unlikable racist one.
• The Woobie: Poor Sir Henry. And poor Beryl and Laura, as well.

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