Now what was the very first horror movie is a matter still much debated. But certainly there were plenty of silent classics which are the foundations of the genre, movies such as Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera made by Universal starring Lon Chaney Snr. However it was a pair of talkies, again made by Universal, and both released in 1931, that really cemented the genre in place - Dracula starring Bela Lugosi and Frankenstein starring Boris Karloff. Indeed Frankenstein was first released on November 21st, meaning that this seminal movie brought a chill to that particular Christmas season!
Now Universal very quickly became the kings of horror, and none of other Hollywood studios could really match them. However over at Warners Bros was a young director called Michael Curtiz who would go on to make an incredible number of classic movies such as Casablanca, Angels With Dirty Faces, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Jazz Singer and White Christmas. However at the start of this glittering career he would make some classic chillers such as Doctor X with Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray and The Walking Dead with Boris Karloff.
However his biggest horror hit was 1933’s The Mystery of the Wax Museum, which reunited Atwill and Wray in this horror classic about a mad and murderous wax sculptor. The film has been hugely influential and introduced the trope of a mad artist using real bodies to make sculptures. However this classic crosses our radar as the action in this movie unfolds over the festive period.
However his biggest horror hit was 1933’s The Mystery of the Wax Museum, which reunited Atwill and Wray in this horror classic about a mad and murderous wax sculptor. The film has been hugely influential and introduced the trope of a mad artist using real bodies to make sculptures. However this classic crosses our radar as the action in this movie unfolds over the festive period.
Well to be precise the mad mayhem actually takes place over the New Year period, but there is festive décor to be seen, including some Christmas trees. So although technically this isn’t quite a Christmas horror it is the earliest example of a fright flick set over Yuletide (which technically ends at Twelfth Night).
However a few years later we would get something nearer the festive mark! In 1936, MGM released The Devil-Doll starring Lionel Barrymore. Now this was the last horror movie directed by Todd Browning who had previous helmed classic chillers such as the lost silent horror London After Midnight with Lon Chaney Snr., the Universal Lugosi Dracula, Mark of the Vampire (also with Lugosi and a remake of London After Midnight) and most infamously the often banned Freaks in 1932.
Now this movie tells the tale of Paul Lavond (played by Barrymore), a man who had been a very successful banker, but is stitched-up by three nefarious associates and winds up falsely convicted of robbery and murder, and imprisoned at Devil’s Island. However Paul along with another inmate, an eccentric inventor, manages to escape the infamous prison, and they hide out at the secluded home of the inventor. There he discovered the elderly scientist and his wife have perfected a method of shrinking living beings down to tiny size. However the catch is, the shrunken subjects lose their intelligence and are effectively reduced to being living puppets, and the inventor dies before ironing out this wrinkle. However Paul discovers he can control the shrunken subjects with his own brainwaves.
Now if you think that is far out, wait until you hear what happens next. Paul and the inventor’s wife make their way to Paris, where they set up a small toy store selling extremely life-like dolls (and I bet you can guess how they make ‘em). But even more bizarrely, realising that the police will be looking for him, Paul poses as Madame Mandilip, a kindly old lady who owns the little doll emporium. And thus disguised he set out using various dolls i.e. shrunken folks to wreak his revenge on the three dastardly partners who framed him for the bank robbery.
Now what has all of this to do with Christmas, other than perhaps involving killer toys? Well, the climax of Paul’s campaign of revenge takes place during the festive period, and features a highly memorable scene, indeed of the movie’s best scenes, where one of Paul’s shrunken assassins has been disguised as an ornament on a Christmas tree, and then in the dead of night activates to carry out its murderous mission! Very creepy!
Apparently director Todd Browning originally envisioned this as a much darker movie, however after the controversy over Freaks, the studio were somewhat nervous about letting him have free rein, and hence the final film is somewhat watered down, most noticeably in somewhat lengthy subplot scenes involving Paul attempting to build bridges with his estranged daughter. And I can’t help wondering if Browning’s original darker vision perhaps involved more unsettling juxtapositions of cosy festive scenes and killer dolls.
However despite the studio’s meddling, The Devil-Doll is still a very fine little movie, with Lionel Barrymore putting in a terrific performance, in particular in the guise of sweet but secretly murderous old lady Madame Mandilip. And it does give us our first bona fide dose of Christmas horror. However there would be more coming very soon…
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