User reviews

Most of the other commenters seem to have seen a truncated, blurry version of this movie. The new DVD certainly kept me entertained! It's true that the movie is very dark, but the shadowy photography is beautiful and Germanic -- prime '30s look, fog, candlelight, and all. I just checked, and I see that cinematographer Gunther Krampf also shot NOSFERATU, THE STUDENT OF PRAGUE, and PANDORA'S BOX. Pretty good resume!

Hoaky old dark house cliches and humor, for sure, but funny if you know the genre. The woman who wants to be the "sheikh's" love slave is a real hoot. Karloff, Thesiger, Hardwick, and Richardson are all very good, as are the romantic couple who spar and then decide they like each other (surprise!). Karloff's self-mutilation scene is brilliantly disturbing. And wait a second, is that a patch of bamboo he stumbles into just in front of the Yorkshire moors? This is all great fun, perhaps best if you check any high expectations at the door.

Boris Karloff was already a horror mainstay at this point in his career, having played Frankenstein's monster, The Mummy, and Fu Manchu, and now playing the titular Ghoul. This film has a deceased Karloff coming back to life after an Egyptian jewel he was buried with is stolen. The film really does, pun intended, come to life after Karloff's resurrection, but the build up to that point for the film's short 79-minute runtime is a bit of a slog. Overall, this British horror film isn't exactly a Universal Pictures Horror classic, but it is solid entertainment. FUN FACT! "The Ghoul" is one of many films to have fallen into the public domain, so it is freely available for download on the internet.

If you can locate a copy of this exceptional talkie you are indeed fortunate. It took me years to find, yet it was well worth the wait.

The history of this Karloff gem is fascinating. 'The Ghoul' had completely disappeared, not even the trailer survived. Yet in the 1980's (if I remember correctly), a lone nitrate print turned up in Prague, (with Hungarian subtitles) in *appalling* condition. Apparently, the nitrate film had shrunk to a mere third of it's original width, was exceptionally brittle and in a number of pieces yet was effectively restored... albeit not to the quality of it's release. Therefore, I was prepared to overlook the graininess, variable contrast and sound-track distortions.

'The Ghoul' belongs to Karloff. Had the film not vanished it would have become a hardy perennial of late night television horror alongside the Lemalle classics. As for the cast, sets and script (in that order), the film is superior to other horror classics of the period.

The story-line is vaguely reminiscent... an eccentric, terminally ill man (of Egyptian ancestry) decrees that a rare artefact must be entombed with him otherwise trouble will befall. As to be anticipated, the scarab jewel is removed from the hand of his corpse by a tomb robber not long after internment providing the impetus to wreak revenge in the signature fashion.

The quality of the film may distract some viewers, but the atmosphere retains most of it's inaugural impact. Definitely an eight and a half!

The surprising thing about THE GHOUL is that it features an impressive background score for a film made in '33, when most soundtracks were almost completely devoid of music. This is something the other comments here failed to mention.

The other plus factor is the brilliant B&W photography done in Gothic style to suit the story elements here. An Egyptologist returns from the grave to take revenge on a servant who has stolen a sacred jewel. BORIS KARLOFF is the doctor with his own rules about how to offer sacrifices to Anubis in order to have eternal life.

The pace is slow and there's too much silly banter that features KATHLEEN HARRISON in a role designed to give the audience comedy relief. RALPH RICHARDSON is excellent as a cleric who seems to be a helpful visitor and ERNEST THESIGER is fine as the nervous servant.

The Gothic ambiance is strong with handsome interiors of a house in shadows and the flavor of an "old dark house mystery" is well sustained. Plotwise, there are loopholes and the story only really picks up once Karloff has returned from the grave.

For fans of this genre, this is an interesting film and Karloff's performance is first rate.

Boris Karloff plays a crazy old guy who worships the Egyptian god, Anubis. On his death bed, he swears that if anyone should steal a sacred jewel from his Anubis statue he will return from the dead to exact revenge. Not surprisingly, several very greedy people come along and try stealing the jewel--only to incur the wrath of the zombie Karloff. Despite the whole Egyptian aspect of the film, though, he was not a mummy nor was this just a rehash of THE MUMMY (also from 1933). Overall, it's a rather standard but well-produced zombie murdering the idiots film--not great, but certainly worth seeing.

By the way, in a funny inside joke, there is a parody of the "desert savage" style of film. THE SHEIK, THE SON OF THE SKEIK and THE BARBARIAN were among several films like this and in THE GHOUL, there is a supposed sheik and a lady who is infatuated with this clichéd image of a macho and sexist Middle Eastern lover.

The sets, cinematography and overall atmosphere is excellent. The music is effective in some spots only. Karloff, mostly speechless, plays the title character superbly and in well-designed horrific makeup. He looks like he's rotting and loosing control of his limbs from the start--but from what? He is not a ghoul in the classic sense (too gruesome for 1933) and while the story would seem to depict him as the walking dead, he may not be. Thesiger, Richardson and Sir Cedric are fine. Dorothy Hyson is a gorgeous, leggy damsel in distress. The film only wakes up during Karloff's intensely creepy scenes that just total less than 20 minutes. This is an example of a once lost film with a reputation that was overblown by the tantalizing stills in the monster magazines. The elements for greatness were there except for the lack of a good script and the bad histrionics of several supporting players. The ending is especially weak.

T. Hayes Hunter's "The Ghoul" of 1933 is certainly not one of the best movies starring the incomparable Boris Karloff, as Karloff sadly doesn't have the screen time one could have hoped for, but it has its qualities and is doubtlessly worth watching, also for the reason that "The Ghoul" was thought of as a lost film for a long time.

Professor Morlant (Boris Karloff), a dying Egyptologist who believes in ancient Egyptian Gods, gives the instructions for his burial to his butler (Ernest Thesinger). Hoping to gain eternal life as a follower of an Egyptian deity, Morlant wants to be buried in a tomb by his mansion, with a statue of his God and a valuable jewel in his hand...

This movie's biggest flaw is the lack of screen time for Karloff, out of the movie's 80 minutes, Karloff appears for 25 minutes at the most. In other respects, the movie has many qualities, it is very well photographed, the score is great and fits in perfectly, and all that, as well as lots of shadows, make the movie highly atmospheric and obscure, as the film maintains a certain darkness throughout its entire 80 minutes. Karloff is great as always, and, in spite of the fact that he should have had more screen time, this brilliant actor is so eerie and remarkable that he carries the movie. Seeing Ernest Thesinger (Dr. Pretorius in "Bride Of Frankenstein") deliver a great performance as the butler is another great quality of "The Ghoul". The performances are generally good, Cedrick Hardwicke is great as the lawyer Broughton, and Kathleen Harrison and Harold Huth are great fun to watch in the film's more humorous parts. Unfortunately, the movie, which starts out greatly, gets quite boring in the middle, and nothing really happens for quite some time. Apart from the unnecessary boredom in the middle of the movie, and the fact that Karloff's role could have been a lot bigger, the movie is certainly worth watching. When it comes to Egyptian themed movies with Karloff, however, I'll recommend "The Mummy" of 1932, a true masterpiece, ten times over "The Ghoul".

All things considered, "The Ghoul" is certainly no highlight in the great Boris Karloff's career, but warmly recommended to my fellow fans of classic Horror cinema. 6/10

Boris Karloff plays Prof. Henry Morlant, who acquires 'the eternal light', a valuable jewel that has the power to open the gate to immortality, after which he promptly carks it, the stone in his hand when he is laid to rest. When Morlant's manservant Laing (Ernest Thesiger) sneaks into the tomb and steals the eternal light, the professor returns from the dead to reclaim the jewel, much to the horror of his heirs, Ralph Morlant (Anthony Bushell) and Betty Harlon (Dorothy Hyson).

This 1933 Boris Karloff horror was considered a 'lost' movie for many years. In the late '60s, someone unearthed a weathered, subtitled version missing vital scenes, but it wasn't until the early '80s that a pristine English-language print was found in a vault at Shepperton Studios, finally allowing cinephiles to fully appreciate what an incredibly dull film it really is. It makes one wonder whether certain lost films would be better off staying that way (having seen Tod Browning's Mark of the Vampire, I have my doubts about whether London After Midnight is the lost 'classic' that many believe it to be).

It's a long wait until Karloff rises from his tomb to wreak revenge, and even when he does, it's not very exciting stuff, the only scary thing about Morlant being his eyebrows, which are monstrous in size (he looks like Sam the eagle from the Muppets). The final ten minutes are the best part of the film, but getting there is a challenge: viewers who make it to the final act without falling asleep will be treated to an enjoyably daft ending that sees several villains crawling out of the woodwork, and which ends with an inferno caused by a falling lamp conveniently helping the good guys to escape.

3/10.

I disagree wholeheartedly with those who have given this film a bad review. The acting is superb, particularly Ralph Richardson as the 'Vicar', and the character actors, and of course Boris himself. Beautifully shot with wonderful props and set (I'd love to know which house they used!) it could put many a famous cinematic Haunted House to shame! The plot is reasonably clever and well-paced --nobody wants anything too complex in this atmospheric genre-- and the romantic subplot is suitably unsentimental and unobtrusive. Especially wonderful is the moment when the second woman, who had been swooning ridiculously in front of the man who calls himself a Sheik and generally acting silly, turns suddenly brave and holds the baddies at bay with the words (remember this is 1933!) "I don't THINK so!"

Karloff never looked worse with those sunken eyes and facial putty. It's interesting that he gets top billing, considering how ineffectual he is and how little time he spends on the screen. The film does look good with the old mansion and the dark corners, but it eventually turns into one of those farcical in the door, out the door, in a window, out a window movies, with silly characters bumping into each other, terrified. The beginning is quite good as we learn of a mysterious stone of great value. It is thought to be able to bring back the dead. Then there is all that fainting. Were all the women hypoglycemic? I counted five times. I did enjoy looking at Ernest Thesiger from Bride of Frankenstein. The rest of the cast were good actors caught in a comedic clunker. By the way, is it ever explained how Karloff died and came back with superhuman qualities? If it weren't for all the great actors, it wouldn't have been much.

Err, interesting, aimless, bad acting, bad direction, uneven, but interesting nevertheless. Worth watching simply because it was made in 1933. The makeup was well done. Other than that.....

This film is a curiosity in the classic horror field and it easily gained a cult-status for some very simple reasons. First of all, because "The Ghoul" was the very first British horror film with sound, and that's quite spectacular since Britain would later become one of most eminent horror-producing countries (with Hammer, Tigon, etc…). Secondly – and more importantly – "The Ghoul" was considered a lost film for many decades, so when a reasonably undamaged copy was discovered, naturally many Boris Karloff fans wanted to see it right away. So, purely talking trivia, this film is well worth a purchase. On the other hand, however, it's a very uneven and lacking thriller that doesn't deliver many chills. Especially compared to other classic Karloff-titles of that period (like "Frankenstein", "The Mummy" or "The Old Dark House"), "The Ghoul" is slow-paced and unmemorable. The film stars Boris Karloff (with an impressive pair of eyebrows) as a dying professor who believes an Egyptian jewel will grant him immortality. He wishes to be buried with it, but when his servant steals it from his tomb, the professor resurrects as a zombie on a quest for revenge. Half way through the screenplay, the story all of a sudden turns into a comedy with a whole bunch of bizarre characters that're all chasing a treasure they don't know. Some of the dialogues are very well written but the film lacks action and atmosphere. Simply put, "The Ghoul" is really tedious whenever Boris Karloff is not on screen. And, unfortunately, that's for about 75% of the entire length.

This movie is an entertaining tale of Prof. Morlant (Boris Karloff), an eccentric Egyptologist who is fixated on the powers of the ancient Egyptian gods. On his deathbed he tells his servant (Ernest Thesinger) to bind the sacred jewel called "The Eternal Light" to his hand. He warns that if the jewel is taken, he will return from the grave seeking revenge....

Boris Karloff's presence and a superb cast move this moody, atmospheric classic along at a great pace. This movie has some great dialogue and an interesting plot. It is very rare, but I was lucky enough to find it on video. If you are a fan of the genre, and you happen to find it, I encourage you to rent it, buy it, whatever.

In the wake of his bravura role in "Frankenstein," Boris Karloff made some terrific grade-B horror movies, many of which made use of his superb speaking voice. "The Man They Could Not Hang," "The Walking Dead," "The Black Cat" and "The Devil Commands" for example. Sorry but "The Ghoul" isn't one of them. It's a talky, confusing yarn about a dying Egypologist and the precious jewel he believes will give him immortal life. Atmospherically, it looks as if it was filmed by the light of a 50 watt bulb. Among the actors, Ernest Thesiger as Karloff's disloyal servant has a field day but Cedric Hardwicke as the family solicitor appears to have wandered in from the remake of a Dickens classic (along with his law office set,) Anthony Bushnell as a romantic young swain can't act and Kathleen Harrison's comic conniptions at meeting a sheik are straight from a sidestreet music hall. Hopefully, Karloff had a wonderful time going home to England, suddenly a star at the age of 45 after years of struggle as a character actor. But while his deathbed scene at the start of "The Ghoul" is the high spot of the movie, he probably should have stuck to seeing the sights.