The House of Fear

 

The House of Fear is my favorite movie in the Sherlock Holmes series. Like many in the series, it has a great opening, featuring a stellar acting performance by Basil Rathbone. The movie is set in Scotland, so we get to take an inspiring trip through the country side to a spooky old mansion. What I like about this mansion so much is that the interior is all paneled in wood which creates a dark and gloomy atmosphere. Interestingly, they use the same house picture in this movie as they use in The Voice of Terror! It’s an intriguing mystery about murders taking place one by one. Of course Sherlock Holmes is called in to solve the crimes, as well as Dennis Hoey as Inspector Lastrade. Every time one of the inhabitants is destined for demise the victim receives and envelop full of orange seeds, as if from the murderer. It is quickly postulated that the murders are taking place for insurance money. The scenes are quite diverse: a local tavern, an ocean front mansion, a graveyard, a beach, and 221B Baker Street. The mansion is a real man cave with all male actors except for Mrs. Monteef, the maid who never fails to act sinister and spooky. Plenty of drinks, pipes, and cigarette smoking abound with Basil Rathbone declaring, “too many clues, too many suspects.” But that’s the House of Fear, impossible to figure out until the end