1940’s Crimes at the Dark Horse is the eighth film Tod Slaughter starred in over a five-year period, and the last to be included in the Powerhouse/Indicator blu-ray box set which was my introduction to his work.  It seems funny to me that what shocked audiences in 1935 was becoming passe by 1940.  So much […]

After seeing six previous films in Powerhouse/Indicator’s Tod Slaughter box set, I didn’t think there was anything in 1939’s The Face at the Window which could surprise me.  And yet, a moment near the end caught me completely unaware.  It isn’t a big twist but that it had any surprises made me smile.  It was […]

1938’s Sexton Blake and the Hooded Terror has the titular detective residing on Baker Street, and solving crimes with his bumbling assistant.  There’s also a middle-aged woman who cooks, cleans and fusses over him.  There’s even a Scotland Yard detective who has never bested Blake.  Any similarities to Sherlock Holmes are purely intentional. The film […]

You can learn all kinds of strange things from movies.  For example, there’s the curious title of 1937’s The Ticket of Leave Man.  I was wondering what that phrase meant, and it turns out it as an old British expression that is roughly analogous to parole.  I wonder if that phrase is still widely in […]

One my favorite novels is Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix.  In his book, a store that is obviously a surrogate for Ikea is haunted by the ghosts of guests of the prison that used to occupy the land a century before. Those ghosts then subject unfortunate employees to such tortures as they endured in their rehabilitation […]

UK censors have always been more concerned about violence than their equivalents in the US, which makes it all the more surprising 1936 British thriller The Crimes of Stephen Hawke is about a villain who breaks the spines of their victims.  What’s even worse is Tod Slaughter, as that fiend, tends to giggle mischievously after […]

It’s odd how some very dark moments in history can become popular stories in later eras, ones that are told over and over again.  In the fourteenth century, there was a French barber killing the wealthiest customers and stealing their money, only to turn their bodies over to the pastry chef next door for fresh […]

Movies have taught me the best reaction to some questions or statements is to turn and run.  Consider “What are you doing here?”  If you even have to ask that question, you should already have turned heel and booked it instead of saying anything.  Worse still is if somebody asks for confirmation that nobody knows […]