Rating: 4/5
Hoop-Tober | 8/31 | Decades 8/10 | 40s
A small-town inn puts on a picture show. Folks sit in dining room chairs. A woman accompanies the movie on piano. While this happens, a woman leaves the theater for her room. In her closet, beady eyes watch her.
The sound of thumps and glass shattering sends the concierge from the theater to the room. He barges in to find the place ransacked and the woman on the floor strangled to death. The constable investigates — this murder is the third in a series that has rattled the community. All the victims share one commonality: they were women who lived with a physical disability.
Helen, a mute woman, leaves the movie and walks home alone. She fits the killer’s MO. In a house full of men, who can she trust?
Robert Sidomak brilliantly combines film noir aesthetics and conversation with a horror story. The film also utilizes melodrama conventions, giving us a cast of respectable men. Anyone could be the killer.
Nicholas Musuraca, a cinematographer and RKO regular, brings a similarly gothic and subtle eye to the film. The film will jump into the killer’s perspective, giving us his surreal and warped worldview. When he sees Helen, he sees her with no mouth.
This movie may not surprise you, but its effortless genre-blending and cinematography are a delight to experience.