The year this film was made Universal stopped making horror pictures until years later, the "golden era" as it was known had ended. However for Universal it had ended years before with the massive changes that Universal had gone through to survive and the loss of key filmmakers and all the first rate horror actors. Universal did not know how to make effective horror and tempered it with comedy, romance and mystery stories, seemingly scared to shock. Only Gale Sondergaard and Rondo Hatton remained to chill the viewiers. This film was one of the very last horror films produced by Universal in the golden era and shows everything the studio was doing wrong. In truth pales in comparison to the films made by Republic, RKO and PRC at the time who had the courage of their convictions in making the films. To the viewier this is disappointing as the film has been hard to find for many years and yet really isn't worth searching for although it is now easily available.
The story is a confused "old dark house" murder mystery on an island with a search for two hundred thousand dollars, the people in the house getting bumped off one by one off camera and a silly supposed medium who appears from nowhere with her cat. The film doesn't play up the horror elements and has large continuity errors. For example, the annoying wise cracking journalist compulsary in such films meets a lady at the door for the first time, in a few minutes he's kissing her and we find they are lovers of many years. It's all very mediocre and in the end the revealing of the killer contradicts the story too. When you think this was the studio that made FRANKENSTEIN, THE BLACK CAT, THE WOLFMAN and many more, shouldn't we have the right to expect more? It's not a film worth getting angry about, it's just disappointing and ultimately production line filmmaking that is utterly forgettable. 2/10.
Special Thanks to Mark Coyle for this Movie Review.