Grade: D-
Synopsis: An Egyptologist (Boris Karloff) rises from the grave to seek a sacred jewel.
The Ghoul starts off well enough, with a bedridden and disfigured Boris Karloff in a gloomy gothic mansion going over the instructions to be carried out after his death. It’s a good setup, and the funeral scene that follows, with Karloff locked in a crypt—with the key inside–has you pumped for some serious undead action.
Except that doesn’t happen. Instead, the focus shifts to Karloff’s relatives, played by Dorothy Hyson and Anthony Bushell, and Hyson’s servant, played by Kathleen Harrison, as the story morphs into a would-be clone of the first half of Alfred Hitchcock’s Number Seventeen (1932). To say Hyson, Bushell and Harrison are stiff is an understatement. Utterly lacking in charisma and presence, they turn the film into an excruciating exercise in patience of which the only redeeming quality is the atmospheric photography.
To make matters worse, Karloff doesn’t even show up again until the film’s final few minutes, and he isn’t even that terrifying, creeping around like some kind of dim-witted zombie, rather than an undead killing machine.
Thus, The Ghoul is worth a look for Karloff die-hards only, and even they should be sure to keep the fast-forward button handy.
