User Reviews

A belief held by some of Christian faith is that the world of entertainment is becoming weirder and they point as evidence of this to the numerous dark, supernaturally themed TV shows and movies which have proliferated in recent decades. That may be so, but I wonder if they'd still think the same if they were to watch this?

Horror is not a film genre I particularly care for, although there have been a few titles from the '60s and '70s that I've enjoyed. I quite like silent movies, however, and some of the films spotlighted in this documentary I've seen and found to be moderately entertaining.

Among the numerous clips from silent Horror films included in this documentary are scenes from: "The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari"(1919), "Dante's Inferno" (1902), "Faust" (1926), "The Golem" (1920), "Leaves From Satan's Book" (1919), "Maciste In Hell" (1925), "Nosferatu" (1922), "Waxworks" (1924), "Witchcraft Through The Ages" (1922), et al. All very morbidly themed and spiritually ponderous motion pictures.

Production-wise, many of these early Horror films were well made, as with their atmospheric cinematography. Technical elements aside, however, these early films were so slow moving and often of lengthy run-time that it's debatable whether they contained much entertainment value. They certainly did not seem intended to scare their audience the way that later Horror movies like "The Exorcist" set out to do.

Although I wouldn't describe silent Horror films as chilling, a common factor among them was their apparent obsession with the soul -- their fascination with gloomy eschatology. They possessed a religiously oriented weightiness which by and large the Horror movies of later decades would go onto lack, flicks which are superficial in comparison with their monochromatic predecessors in that they often feature monsters or human villains whose victims are mortals, as opposed to potential eternally condemned reprobates.

Rod Steiger narrates, in a parlance a wee put-on, as if his wanting to come across a spooky and sophisticated storyteller. The effect is alternately risible and soporific.

Prior to talkies the acting in motion pictures was understandably melodramatic in a physical sense. Emphatic gesturing and over-the-top facial reactions on the part of hambones was quite common and so there is the whole amateurish acting aspect of silent films as well which makes these clips in KINGDOM OF SHADOWS perhaps undeserving of the serious analytical tone which the narrator employs (without trying to sound too pretentious).

Steiger's commentary is not entirely uninsightful. Take the scene of a monk who is ordered by his superior to strip naked. The latter removes a flagellum from off the wall and takes to whipping the prostrated anchorite. Supposedly administered to cleanse the recipient of his sins. But as the narrator observes, the scene is performed in such an ambiguous manner that viewers are left wondering whether the monk is pained or excited by the experience.

In the end, KINGDOM OF SHADOWS (which would have been better had it contained snippets of interviews from film historians) is mediocre. It's a tad plodding, no more so than in the clips of somnambulists and zombies shuffling about. Watching all these sepulchral scenes from silent Horror films -- with their devils and dungeons and torture chambers and other medieval details and doings -- is not the most joyous of affairs, either. Much of this is disturbing content, but I suppose no more than what is contained in the Book of Revelation.