Phantom des Schreckens

If you haven't seen Invisible Ghost, I won't bother going into much of the plot. Most of it is silly and doesn't make much sense. Basically, the story involves a man who is driven to commit murder by seeing his supposedly dead wife. That's really all you need to know. And, it's not much of a spoiler as you discover most of this within the first ten minutes or so.

Lugosi is great as the mad killer. A really first-rate acting job that is by far one of his best from the Poverty Row movies he made (that I've seen). He does an excellent job of alternating between the kindly Charles Kessler and the mad killer. Clarence Muse is also a standout as the butler, Evans. Muse played Evans as smart, calm, strong, and nothing like the typical black character you find in a 40s horror/mystery movie. I call him the anti-Mantan.

Over the past few years, I've learned to enjoy the movies from the 40s that Monogram and others were putting out. Invisible Ghost is not the best of the bunch, but it's certainly not the worst. It's fun to watch if just to see Lugosi hamming it up. Just don't take these movies too seriously.