London After Midnight (1927)
Directed by Tod Browning
The abandoned Balfour House, the owner of which was found dead five years earlier, comes back to life with the arrival of two suspicious sinister-looking tenants.
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What critics compared London After Midnight to
Em agosto, já havia sido disponibilizado o primeiro trailer, mostrando que o vilão gordo da literatura fora substituído por Ethan Hawke, com uma máscara e cartola que trazia referência a Lon Chaney em London After Midnight.
Desde ya que El Teléfono Negro no es para nada novedosa o “de quiebre”, sin embargo su arribo es motivo de celebración porque se extrañaba muchísimo una odisea atrapante y osada alrededor del latiguillo a priori quemado del homicida en serie en busca de una presa siempre dócil, planteo que hoy por suerte se complejiza y se expande a través del genial trabajo actoral de Thames y un Hawke que despunta como un villano antológico con una galera y una máscara diabólicas semejantes al Lon Chaney de La Casa del Horror ( London After Midnight , 1927), legendaria epopeya muda y perdida de Tod Browning, y al Doctor Caligari de Werner Krauss de El Gabinete del Dr. Caligari ( Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari , 1920), obra maestra de Robert Wiene.
Kent is clearly steeped in the history of horror, as her depiction of the Babadook is an amalgam of a number of classical horror figures—the clothes of the mad doctor in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), the weird grinning visage of Lon Chaney’s vampire in Tod Browning’s lost London After Midnight (1927), and Max Shreck’s elongated digits in Nosferatu (1922).
And then there's the Babadook — a taloned, top-hatted madman who, even as he stays in the shadows, seems to bear a close family resemblance to Lon Chaney's villain in "London After Midnight."
Its “monster” is, by Kent’s own admission, grounded in the image of Lon Chaney in London After Midnight (1927) — a particularly shrewd choice since that film is lost and the image is all we have.
Judging by the dark, sketchy drawings in the book, Mister Babadook is a top-hatted, cloaked figure with wild eyes and spidery fingers — he suggests a silent screen villain, equal parts Nosferatu, Dr. Caligari, John Barrymore’s Mr. Hyde and Lon Chaney in “London After Midnight.”
Starting shortly after the tragedy of the Overlook Hotel, Danny and his mother abscond to 1980 sun-dappled Florida, where we are also introduced to a gypsy caravan of supernatural beings known as The True Knot, a serial killing cult led by Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson, styled like the sexy femme fatale version of Lon Chaney in London After Midnight, 1927).
Producer Carl Laemmle Jr's first choice was versatile actor Lon Chaney, who had scored hits in a number of silent horror classics, including The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Phantom of the Opera, and London After Midnight.
Browning himself was known for his long career of macabre and sinister movies like those he made with Lon Chaney: Outside the Law (1921), The Unholy Three (1925), The Road to Mandalay (1926), The Unknown (1927), London After Midnight (1927), West of Zanzibar (1928), and Where East Is East (1929).
Once recovered, Browning began making films that reflected his obsessions and, very possibly, his dysfunctions, marking his films (in particular Puppets, the great Freaks, and three of his eleven collaborations with Lon Chaney: The Unknown, the lost London After Midnight (an earlier flirtation with vampire folklore), and The Unholy Three) as transparent to a psychoanalytic approach while doing little to elevate the technical craft on display in his pictures from the level of earnest, flat, hackwork.
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Browning had been a successful silent filmmaker, directing Lon Chaney, Sr., in things like "The Unholy Three" and "London After Midnight," and he made a successful transition into talkies directing Bela Lugosi in the original, 1931 "Dracula."
His more notable films star Lon Chaney (London After Midnight) and Bela Lugosi (Dracula), both of whom displayed physical abnormalities in their roles.