The Black Room

Roy William Neill
1935

This is a barely adequate b-picture that would be a total loss were it not for Boris Karloff playing the dual role of Yin and Yang twins. The Berghman family curse, in which one twin brother is destined to kill the other, leads kindly Anton (Karloff) to travel for many years before returning home at the behest of his wicked brother baron Gregor (also Karloff). The story is all Poe in it's spirit of gothic macabre, with the inclusion of Dario Argento-esque corpse-pit being a legitimately ghoulish conceit, but unfortunately there's little tension leading up to a finale that's not only predestined, but also directly spelled out midway through the picture. Karloff does just fine in his two-faced performance, and the sets and costumes are surprisingly nice, but due to the lack of any sort of tension or suspense this one's pretty much for completists only.