La découverte d'un secret

This very personal movie from Murnau sets the precedent for the author´s most notorious movie: Nosferatu the vampire.

Murnau demonstrates his superb command of the camera and the illumination while setting the bases of the expressionism.

The suspense distilled in Haunted Castle is well worth a Hitchcock´s movie and the plot is surprisingly complex for a silent.

Do make sure that you see it in a winter stormy night

Haunted Castle, The (1921)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

An "old dark house" film from director F.W. Murnau about a group of people staying in an (what else?) old dark house. One night the house's owner turns up missing and later in the night his son, who was accused of killing his own brother, shows up. I read somewhere that this is the earliest surviving work from director Murnau but this here doesn't show any of his wonderful visual style that would kick into high gear the following year with Nosferatu. The film, running just under an hour, takes way too time introducing us to the characters and the actual mystery doesn't start until the very end of the movie. There really isn't any visual style either. There's one character that looks like the Karloff character in Whale's The Old Dark House, which makes you think Whale saw this film (especially since the character here leads to a good twist in the story). Another interesting aspect is a scene that uses the hands of Nosferatu to a similar effect that would be seen in the next year's Nosferatu. I had to view an overly dark, 16mm print without a music score.

Was actually on first glance really intrigued by the title, before realising when and after watching the film that the title was misleading and had nothing to do with the film pretty much. My biggest reason for wanting to see 'The Haunted Castle' was FW Murnau. If you are intrigued by early cinema and are interested in getting into silent films and love films that look great, have interesting themes and great atmosphere, Murnau is a very appropriate place to start as his work is full of it.

To me though, don't make 'The Haunted Castle' your first exposure to him. While not a terrible film by all means, it may make one wondering what the fuss with Murnau is and not be too desperate to see more of his films. If so that would be a shame, because he did a lot of fantastic films since and as indicated above was a major talent. 'The Haunted Castle' is not a great or fair representation of him, nice enough for historical, curiosity and completest interests but not an awful lot more. Am not trying to be snobbish here or trying to upset anybody, it's just my thoughts.

It's not a bad looking film, though not one of Murnau's best or most interesting looking films. It is very atmospherically photographed which makes the most of the eerie lighting and extravagant set designs. The last quarter of the film is quite good and where the story finally comes to life, did find it entertaining and quite suspenseful.

Murnau's direction does show flashes of brilliance though not distinctive or distinguished enough. The dream sequences are wonderfully surreal especially with the scullery boy, which was also quite amusing. The way the main character goes about finding out the truth was interesting to watch. Although the acting was not impressive to me, Lothar Mehnert did a good job and had a powerful presence.

Despite a good last quarter, it is a shame that it takes a long time to get there. Although the running time is not long, the story for 'The Haunted Castle' felt like a short stretched out. It takes too long to get going and a vast majority of the film is very sluggish, which makes one finding it difficult to invest in a mystery that was already quite mundane and not very atmospheric.

Furthermore, 'The Haunted Castle' did feel talk-heavy, those verbose and too long intertitles slow the film down and didn't strike me as necessary, and felt too much of a filmed stage play. Am really trying to judge this as a product of the time and not compare it to now, but it's hard not to. Mehnert aside, the acting is both overdone and mannered and that is even for 1921. Have actually seen silent films from before 1921 that had a lot more subtle acting, so sorry for me calling this kind of acting as that of the time is not an excuse. Olga Tschechowa's mannerisms in particular grate.

Overall, worth a one-time look but Murnau is far from at his best here. 5/10

I knew going in this was not a horror film, in spite of the English title: while not uninteresting in itself, it emerges as a very minor Murnau. Little of the director's trademark stylistics are present here; the film does constitute an early use of flashback, as it slowly divulges the events behind a past crime for which the wrong man was accused – but the characters don't exactly set the screen on fire.

The Sinister Cinema edition I watched was a mere 56 minutes in length, as opposed to the restored 74-minute version of the film; not surprisingly, the choppy editing (full of phony-looking transitions and an equally pointless establishing shot of the castle used ad nauseam throughout) made the plot somewhat hard to follow – and the lack of detail in the print itself, not to mention the absence of an accompanying music score, didn't help matters either!

Even so, the film is worth watching for the unethical way the elderly hero goes about discovering the real identity of his brother's killer and for a couple of brief – if irrelevant – dream sequences, one expressionistic (and which can now be seen as a dry run for NOSFERATU [1922]) and the other surreal. Some years back, Image Entertainment had announced a DVD release of THE HAUNTED CASTLE but, for reasons known only to them, it was summarily cancelled and has yet to appear officially on any digital format.

Several people in a house come face to face with a murder mystery -- and one of them is guilty of the crime! This film has no familiar actors, and something of a misleading title (it is not a literal translation of the German). The phrase "haunted castle" clearly implies a horror film and not a detective story, but there is very little horror here.

Lothar Mehnert stars as Count Oetsch, and although I know absolutely nothing about him, I was very drawn to his performance. He has a striking look that I think makes for a good stage or screen presence. What else has he done? I do not know, but should seek it out.

The film is light on humor, though there is a sequence I will call "the kitchen boy dream" that I found funny. What is it implying? What does it mean? How does it connect to the big story? I have no idea.

The Kino DVD contains a book / film comparison and I would recommend this. It shows how radically different the film is in some ways from the book. While the essence is the same, I would almost have to say they are two different creatures altogether.