Synopsis
The Black Cat (1934) is a Universal Pictures horror classic you can watch online on iFILM — and one of the few pre-Code films that still lands its punches. Director Edgar G. Ulmer pitted Boris Karloff against Bela Lugosi in the same frame, and the result is more unsettling than most modern horror manages.
American newlyweds are stranded after a car crash in Hungary and end up sheltering in the stark modernist villa of architect Hjalmar Poelzig. Their fellow traveler, Dr. Verdegast, has a debt to collect: Poelzig betrayed him during the war and kept his wife. The house holds worse — glass cases with the bodies of women, a satanic cult, and a host who treats his guests like future exhibits. Ulmer shot the whole thing on a shoestring, using shadows and architecture to build dread that bigger budgets couldn't buy.
At 65 minutes it wastes nothing. What makes it linger is Lugosi playing the wronged man for once, while Karloff gets the cold evil. Stream The Black Cat (1934) online on iFILM.
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