Invisible Ghost

Bela Lugosi is forever ingrained in our minds as Dracula. He is one of the stars of the Universal monster movies and the look he dawned in the movie is forever cemented in pop culture today. Outside of the Dracula movies, he was in many other features, although they never got the hype or the right amount of attention to them. The movie we will be reviewing today is called Invisible Ghost, a suspense/psychological movie (with a pretty lame title). We will judge this movie base on story, acting and suspenseful action scenes. Is this movie a forgotten gem of Lugosi or does it belong in the catacombs forever feeling obsolete. Let's take a nice trip into the 1940s as we look at Invisible Ghost.

This story is set in a nice mansion in somewhere in America. Lugosi is the father of a daughter in her twenties and his wife sadly left him for another man. The daughter is seeing a man named Ralph, and Lugosi has a servant, butler, cook and a maid at his disposal. Well, it turns out that the house might be haunted or something is eerily wrong because different staff keep getting murdered at the house by strangulation and there is no evidence to tie anyone to it. Well, Ralph gets blamed for a murder since he had a fling with the maid and is ultimately executed for it. Distraught, his twin brother comes into the picture and vows to figure out who the real murderer is and try and prove his brother was an innocent man. Spoilers!! It's Lugosi. He reveals he is the murderer twenty minutes into the movie when he kills the maid. What triggers him to do it is because the gardener found Lugosi's wife alive after a car accident and has been keeping her on the premises (she has amnesia). Whenever his wife would sneak out of the hiding and Lugosi sees his wife, he gets triggered and goes into some kind of trance with murderous tendencies. I do like the premise of Lugosi being this kindhearted man who tries and do well but for whatever reason gets murdery whenever he sees his wife. However, we never do find a reason to why he gets triggered. Is it because his wife left him and that's the only way he can get his frustration out? Maybe? I don't know because the movie doesn't give us any reason and quickly gives us the final reveal with a quick ending of Lugosi getting arrested. It leaves me let down that with everything setup for the big reveal, we don't learn anymore of Lugosi's character and many reasons for how he goes into these trances. It just ends and the murderer is revealed, the end. I wish they could have taken a couple more minutes with more motive and more reasoning for Lugosi murdering people but, I guess that is too much to ask for a low budget 1940's movie.

The acting is stock for the time period. Lugosi sounds creepy as always. The other characters are just carbon copy stock characters you see in many of these kinds of movies. You got the cigar smoking detective (whose cigar is way too big and is never taken out of his mouth. He ain't Dragnet), you have the love interest/brother who plays the gee wiz shucks kind of guy, a strong woman but not too strong (it is the 40s), etc. Besides Lugosi, the other character that stood out was Evans. He has some good lines and is incredibly likable. He is played by Clarence Muse (famously played Jim in Huck Finn). He does a good job being charismatic and having some kind of passion when he delivers his lines. The rest of the cast just seem to play their characters as stock and uninspiring. Lugosi delivers his lines as typical Lugosi fashion. When he goes into his trance, and becomes blood lustful, his creepy nature shows so much more of his character and his expressions show the most potential throughout the entire movie. He just has that facial expression that is just fascinating and is the best part of his character.

The suspense in the movie is kind of hit and miss. When Lugosi goes into his trance and becomes killy, he uses his smoking jacket as a way to strangle his victims. There are times where he will walk in one way, think about whether to kill someone and decide to backtrack and go kill someone else who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The first murder had some good shots of Lugosi up in front of the camera blocking it so we don't see what he's doing. During his second murder, he looks as he is going to kill Evans, but, luckily, Evans was able to not notice Lugosi stalking him. Lugosi ended up strangling the gardener instead in the kitchen. Some of those scenes are nice because you're wondering who is next, however, since we know the murderer is Lugosi, it takes away some of the suspense of setting up a who done it and maybe have a surprise reveal to it. By giving away the murderer so quickly in the movie, it spoils any kind of potential mystery on hand and just play the waiting game until the other actors finally discover that Lugosi is indeed the murderer.

This movie has some decent moments and some moments that just seem scenes that are just stock cutouts of what characters would interact like the 1940's. The suspense was lackluster throughout most of the movie except for a couple of scenes where we're not sure who will be Lugosis' next victim. Besides Lugosi and Evans, the rest of the cast were stock and they aren't likable. The story is original but the execution and the lead up to Lugosi being the killer was obvious, spelled out quickly and uninspiring. For what it's worth, it's okay but out of Lugosi's other movies, it might rate somewhere in the middle but not a top rated film to delve into.

I give this movie 1.75 Lugosi stares out of 5