365 Days. 365 Films.

I enjoyed this film more than The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, firstly because it’s a ‘talkie’, and secondly because it felt like it had a bit of a stronger plot.

The film is basically an early ‘cop’ drama mixed in with a typical German Expressionist feel and the odd ghost here and there. I was surprised that one scene in particular was quite unnerving and even scary – surprising because of how old the film is and how much more horror has accomplished since. There seems to be several different story lines, some of which seem slightly irrelevant but it all comes together in the end. There are themes of madness, crime and it does have a slight feel of  ’A Christmas Carol’ about it – I can’t help but notice that the ghosts’ make up, dress and technical input was borrowed from an early version of the Scrooge tale.

I would say that this is a good film, but aside from that one unnerving scene, it’s not a very good horror film (something which it is apparently supposed to be). I would recommend watching this because it did stand out as a good example of an early horror/crime drama and if you’re a fan of either of these genres then you should enjoy it. One more criticism I have about the film (although it was enjoyable) is that sometimes I was expecting a little more from certain scenes. The film seemed to set up a scene and then cut away just before it could have gotten interesting – whether or not this was a purposeful attempt to increase tension or not I do not know, but if it was it didn’t really work. Again, though, aside from that it was a very clever and well thought out film which managed to keep me interested nonetheless.