Stephen Jones: The Old Dark House (2006)

Stephen Jones was a director/producer/scriptwriter (video/35mm) for hundreds of commercials, training and promotional videos for a wide variety of companies, including: Abbott Laboratories, Bio Products, Co-op Supermarkets, ICI Pharmaceuticals, Island Records, Rocket Records, Stewart Pharmaceuticals, Video Doctor, etc.

The Old Dark House (2006)

Granada Ventures/Network, UK

DVD

Beware the night . . . One of the most literate and visually striking horror films of the 1930s, The Old Dark House was directed by award-winning James Whale the year after he made the seminal Frankenstein, which also starred Boris Karloff in his role as the Monster. An artful mixture of chills and exceedingly dry gallows humour, The Old Dark House is directed with a wonderful sense of the eccentric and featured early roles for the Oscar-winning Melvyn Douglas (Hud, Being There), Ernest Thesiger (The Bride of Frankenstein) and Charles Laughton (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Private Life of Henry VIII for which he also won an Oscar).

• THE OLD DARK HOUSE (USA, 1932)
Dir: James Whale. With: Boris Karloff, Melvyn Douglas, Charles Laughton, Gloria Stuart, Lillian Bond, Ernest Thesiger. Universal. B&W.
—Audio commentary (with Kim Newman)
• ARCHIVE INTERVIEW WITH SIR IAN MCKELLEN.

Reviews

"The sparkly print is probably as good as one can now expect, though Kim Newman and Stephen Jones's erudite, insightful commentary more than compensates . . ."
—TIME OUT LONDON
August 16-23, 2006

"An enthusiastic, factoid-packed chat-track from horror novelists Kim Newman and Stephen Jones is perfectly pitched."
—Jamie Russell
TOTAL FILM