Review of The Black Room

The Black Room is a great movie. The sets are poor, it lacks the grandeur necessary for a period movie, it obviously had an incredibly low budget, even the premise is poor (though the script had a good twist), mostly Z-grade material, and if that weren't enough, the acting by Karloff's colleagues is abysmal. However Boris Karloff is GREAT in this, I have seen many of his films, which range in quality quite staggeringly, my favourites being the Tourneur movies (least favourite the mad doctors), however in this film his acting is EXTRAORDINARY.

In what is perhaps his greatest performance he plays twin brothers Anton and Gregor so incredibly convincingly. One is an innocent sensitive fop, the other an evil sociopath, what range, what awesome acting! Somehow he seems to make both of them endearing! Let me tell you they certainly don't do it like this anymore.

I am an identical twin myself and it is hard to believe that you aren't watching the performances of twin brothers. The twin dynamic is certainly there, and the scenes when both characters are on screen together are seamless, due to some obviously very clever trickery and Karloff's skill. I can't think offhand of many examples of greater acting in film history, certainly few other actors have Karloff's range.

Highly recommended movie. A fratricidal epic!