THE PHANTOM OF THE RED HOUSE (1956)
Article #269 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 12-10-2001
Posting date: 4-25-2002

A woman who works at a nightclub discovers she will inherit a fortune if she spends three nights in the house with the other heirs. She discovers that someone is trying to knock her off.

It’s a Mexican Old Dark House movie! And I have to admit I actually giggled quite a few times, though I can’t guarantee that the translation was accurate; at any rate, I enjoyed this one. It features one of the surliest housekeepers I’ve ever seen in a movie (one of her lines “The only important date is the date we keep with death.”), one of the stupidest detectives, and a passel of the most unrepentant greedy relatives I’ve ever seen in a movie of this type. One of the strangest moments in this movie comes during the opening credits; despite the cheery comedy music that is playing, all the credits are in typical K. Gordon Murray Mexican horror movie font; if you’ve seen enough of the movies he brought us, you’ll probably know what I’m talking about. At any rate, the font is definitely at odds with the music.