Horrorfest 2019: The Secret of the Blue Room

Welcome to Horrorfest 2019. Last year I watched a bunch of Universal horror films I'd never seen before and this year I'm continuing the quest -- 31 more Universal horrors I've never seen before in 31 days. But I'm cheating a little. I'm watching all 4 hours of the serial THE PHANTOM CREEPS and, since most Universal horror flicks clock in at around 1 hour each, I'm counting it as 4 movies. After this year, I'll have seen pretty much all Universal has to offer in the realm of horror, except a few odd things here and there that are hard to find. Now without further ado:

The Secret of the Blue Room

Directed by Kurt Neumann, written by William J. Hurlbut

Starring Lionel Atwill, Gloria Stuart and Paul Lukas

1933

A young woman and several of her suitors gather at her family home, along with her father and the servants, and hatch a plot for each suitor to take turns spending the night in a haunted room – the titular Blue Room – where guests can’t seem to make it through the night alive.

For not being one of Universal’s best efforts, this film still manages to be a fun whodunnit and I was unable to guess the solution to the mystery, so it kept my attention until the end. TITANIC fans might appreciate young Gloria “Old Kate Winslet” Stuart in a lead role and Universal’s favorite 2^nd tier bad guy, Lionel Atwill, is good as a – spoiler alert – red herring.