"Night Monster" is a minor but effective horror film from "Universal."There aren't many well known people in the cast except Bela Lugosi and Lionel Atwill. Even so , they have little to do.There is an aura of mystery with this film and a fair amount of intrigue.Nothing is quite what it seems.

Whipped together in just eleven days, director Ford Beebe created one of Universal's great fright films: "Night Monster.". Made in 1941, he was lucky in casting the film colony's top performers in every role. Just as good, he had Universal's great production team to help him along. The result is a great movie to watch at night, or a rainy or foggy or wintry afternoon. The setting is the remote Ingston Towers, inhabited by the crippled and reclusive Ralph Morgan, his emotionally distraught daughter, Fay Helm, an over-protective house keeper, Doris Lloyd, a sleazy chauffeur, Leif Erickson, and a too-talkative maid, Janet Shaw. Several esteemed doctors are invited to spend a weekend at the towers along with a noted psychiatric, Irene Hervey, who was secretly invited by the troubled daughter. Don Porter is a frequent visitor along with Nils Asther as Adolph Zing, a medium. We're treated to a great musical score, lifted from The Wolfman, beautiful, shadowy photography, especially in the library scenes where a fireplace throws flickering shadows over the faces of the inhabitants. When famed director Alfred Hitchcock visited the set one day--he was interested in casting Janet Shaw in a movie--he was astonished at what director Beebe was doing in camera shots, the moody lightning and photography. What always fascinates me about Night Monster is the dynamic work done by the great Doris Lloyd as the sinister Sara Judd and cult actress Fay Helm, who steals the acting honors with her harrowing portrayal of a desperate woman trapped in a house she hates. Irene Hervey as the psychiatrist is wonderfully warm and strong. Although Bela Lugosi is top-billed, it is cringe-worthy to see him doomed to play the butler's role--which means he bulges his eyes, smiles strangely and is like wallpaper in terms of acting. The doctors are all doomed for extinction by their failure to cure the invalid of limb paralysis. A fabulous touch of menace is when the frogs stop croaking in the swampy grounds, whenever the night monster appears to murder. You can see the terror in the eyes of the victims. This sudden silence of the frogs and the billowing fog enhances a movie that reminds me much of the 1932 masterpiece, The Black Cat. This is a black and white treat with one of the most amazing casts in Universal history.

Universal horror with Bela Lugosi playing a butler. He was always random to me, but I think I'm starting to like him. Mysterious murders are happening in a castle, the people get strangled, but there's a pool of blood near them. The big castlehouse is in a swamp. Best mist effect ever, pretty creepy. In the house live: paralyzed rich owner, his daughter who is treated by everyone like she's nuts but she might not be, always suspicious servants, while their guests are the tree doctors who saved and paralyzed the owner, the female psychiatrist invited by the daughter, horror story writer and later on a very charismatic and dryly humorous detective. But the most important guest is a mysterious Indian mystic played by the very handsome and charismatic actor Nils Asther, who can control matter on a cosmic particle level and materialize stuff like that. Supernatural whodunit. One maybe knows toward the end who did it, but not how. Alfred Hitchcock liked this movie a lot supposedly. The actors are all good, the atmosphere is good, never boring, shadow play is sometimes very good, always good and effective. the house interior is cool as it is. Of the actors I especially liked Ralph Morgan as the owner, Don Porter as the writer Dick Baldwin (it's funny because all Baldwins are dicks) i Nils Asther as Agor Singh. The latter is cool as he is, handsome, Porter is not really likable at first hand, but he's charming. Great film to watch at 2 am slightly drunk.

The foggy Pallard slough is nearby a gigantic mansion known as the towers and lurking about is a killer who seems to target doctors responsible for the unfortunate crippling of a millionaire, a paralyzed and mangled shell. Through a Hindu "yogist", Mr. Ingston has learned of a possible method to restore his tissues and give him the ability to use his arms and legs once again. Bela Lugosi and Lionel Atwill both get star treatment, although neither popular Universal studios actor has so strong a role to earn such honors. Lugosi is stuck with the butler-who-may-know-more-than-he-is-letting-on role while Atwill is a haughty scientist who thinks highly of himself and his talents as a doctor. Atwill is one of the three doctors whose operation was unsuccessful on Kurt Ingston(Ralph Morgan). We see how the staff who works for Kurt attempt to hide the truth about a recent murder of a doctor, found strangled in the slough, his face frozen in horror. A maid who has had enough of working for such a wacky family decides to quit, but she knows too much and winds up another victim of a "night monster", body found like the previous doc, in the slough. When the other doctors are picked off one by one, a few try to solve the mystery before they wind up victims next, such as a detective novelist, Dick Baldwin(Don Porter)and a psychiatrist, Dr. Lynn Harper, called on by Kurt's sister, Margaret(Fay Helm). Margaret is considered off-her-rocker, often ordered around by the persistent Main Maid, Ms. Judd(Doris Lloyd), who tries to keep her away from Harper as not to convey possible information perhaps viable to identifying the culprit behind the serial strangulations. Leif Erickson steals his scenes as a chauffeur who can not keep his hands to himself as it pertains to the "dames." Erickson's Laurie is a snooper and keeps his ears open as to what's going on, warning, at one point, the maid who quit to keep her mouth shut or else. Laurie is a suspicious character because he has a hard time taking no for an answer when "dames" are vocal, loud and clear, in regards to his off-putting remarks and gestures, wanting a little something-something and coming up empty time and again because he's such a lout. Erikson is also a rather imposing man with a viper smile, so when he compasses Harper at one point, you kind of figure that unless someone interrupts, he'd have his way with her regardless whether or not she consented. Lugosi's butler doesn't play as viable part in the grand scheme of things as you'd think..even though his star wattage was dimming even by '42, to have such a limited role in the meat of the plot is a disappointment, at least for me, a definite fan of his. Nils Asther is Agor Singh, the Hindu who teaches Kurt the art of "materialization", this arcane ability used at one point to reveal a skeleton holding a jewel box containing a cursed blood diamond. When Singh's concentration is broken, the skeleton dematerializes, a blood puddle remaining. This detail is of great importance because at each crime scene a small puddle of blood is left behind. The Universal studios sets are well utilized and director Beebe maintains enough atmosphere to make NIGHT MONSTER a decent enough little chiller which works best as a developing mystery.