Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.5

Crimes at the Dark House Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Justin Dekker May 18, 2024

The last film included in the set, The Criminal Acts of Tod Slaughter: Eight Blood-and-Thunder Entertainments, 1935-1940, 1940's Crimes at the Dark House is based on the novel The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (1824-1889), which was one of the author's best-known works. An association with Charles Dickes helped Collins hone his craft, and later in his career, he used his novels to address pressing social issues of the time. Written in 1860, the book has been the source of several adaptations, with one of the most recent being Andrew Lloyd Webber's adaptation of his musical version of the tale which premiered in 2004. The musical was met with mixed reviews and was considered by some to be, on some level, a victim of its own excess. It was revised and restaged in a more austere fashion in 2017 and was met with more positive reviews. A 2018 five-part BBC-produced television mini-series also tackled the 600-page novel, indicating that the 160-year-old tale continues to be a richly captivating source of inspiration.

Here, though, Crimes at the Dark House is stripped down to the bare essentials so that the massive source material can be squeezed into the incredibly brief 69-minute runtime. As the film opens, Tod Slaughter's role as the villain is immediately and clearly established, as he murders a man, Sir Percival Glyde, in his sleep. Sir Glyde's father had just passed away, leaving him everything, including the estate of Blackwater Park. Since the actual Sir Percival Glyde hasn't been back to his ancestral home in London for over 25 years, Slaughter believes it would be a simple thing to assume the dead man's identity and claim the fortune for his own. Nothing about the inheritance is quite what it seems, and Slaughter's fraudulent Sir Percival finds his idyllic new life is going to require more work and cunning than he bargained for. What follows is a sumptuous mix of Victorian tropes involving lost loves, illegitimate children, mysterious apparitions, insane asylums, the shady dealings of the upper class, and doppelgangers, mixed with generous helpings of Slaughter's villainous scheming, lusty appetites for women decades his junior, and an overly melodramatic but nonetheless gripping performance. The result is a breezy but twisting tale that stands up to repeat viewings with Slaughter at his most brazen.

Crimes at the Dark House Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Per the book included with the set, the original nitrate negative elements of Crimes at the Dark House were scanned in 4K and restored in 2K resulting in a delightful transfer. Issues are few, though as to be expected there are some missing frames, some flickering, and slight density fluctuations. There is some damage to mar the presentation as well, with a few vertical scrathes in the upper right corner of the frame that linger for some time. They're relatively thin and do not run the vertical length of the screen, so while they are present, they aren't very distracting. Detail can be quite good regarding fabrics, hair, and the rough contours of stone walls and ornate scrollwork on furniture and trim pieces.

Crimes at the Dark House Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Crimes at the Dark House features the same Linear PCM 1.0 English track as the other films in the set. Dialogue is cear and concise, sibilance issues have largely abated, but sharp-eared viewers will still catch a few. Occasionally some slight distortion is detected during the film's more heated exchanges and screams of terror where the track has a bit of difficulty handling the increased volume and forceful delivery as the actors' voices push into their upper registers. As is typical for soundtracks from the era, bass is low to nonexistent with music and sound effects left sounding a bit hollow, shrill, or unconvincing. However, given the vintage of the film, it's a completely acceptable and enjoyable track.

Crimes at the Dark House Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The on-disc supplemental content located on Disc Four includes:

• 'The Face at the Window' Audio Commentary with Kevin Lyons and Jonathan Rigby () -

• 'Crimes at the Dark House' Audio Commentary with Kevin Lyons and Jonathan Rigby () -

• Stephen Thrower: Full Blooded (59.06) - intermixed with stills, archival photos and footage, and clips from the films included in the set, Thrower discusses Tod Slaughter's theater career, the films, film censorship of the era, and the films' eventual second life on television as part of afternoon programming. It's one of the best features included in the set.

• Image Galleries

Crimes at the Dark House Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Crimes at the Dark House stands as among the very best films included in Powerhouse's The Criminal Acts of Tod Slaughter: Eight Blood- and-Thunder Entertainments, 1935-1940, 1940's Crimes at the Dark House set. Wonderful sets, one of the very best casts of any of the included films, and a standout performance from Slaughter make it the film that I'll revisit most frequently. The audio and video presentations, while not perfect, do provide an excellent viewing experience, and the nearly hour-long feature helmed by Stephen Thrower should only serve to enhance the appreciation of all of the films included here, whether the viewer is familiar with Tod Slaughter or not. Highly recommended.