House of Horror 1929

At a quiet crossroads in Ohio, spinster Louise Louise Fazenda and her bachelor brother Chester Chester Conklin run a modest country store. Their dull lives take a sudden turn when they are visited by a strange figure—the Mystery Man William V. Mong—who cryptically summons them to New York to visit their long-estranged Uncle Abner Émile Chautard, whom they haven’t heard from in over thirty years.

Chester, a dedicated spiritualist, is convinced this is fate. Interpreting it as a sign from beyond—and encouraged by ghostly hints of a hidden fortune—he and Louise eagerly set off, though Chester is increasingly distracted by the misery of a new set of woolen underwear.

In New York, they arrive at Uncle Abner’s antique shop—a shadowy, sprawling building filled with sinister relics and even more sinister characters. Abner, a paranoid recluse, is protected (and menaced) by two treacherous servants: Brown Tenen Holtz and his scheming wife Gladys Dale Fuller. The house is also home to Joe James Ford and Thelma Thelma Todd, a pair of young fortune-seekers hiding among the antiques, and still searching for the legendary blue diamond believed to be hidden somewhere in the building.

The tension builds as Abner, pretending to sleep, overhears plots against his life and his treasure. Soon, Louise and Chester find themselves caught in a bizarre web of suspense and danger. Louise is forcibly searched for the diamond, and in a moment of quick thinking, she swallows it to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. Meanwhile, Chester endures a series of indignities, including finally having to masquerade in women’s clothing to evade detection—after triumphantly discarding his itchy woolens.

Every time something critical happens, Chester arrives just a moment too late, often bewildered and out of breath, missing the danger, the drama, or the discovery by seconds. But the audience is not kept in the dark—each scene builds toward a final confrontation.

Ultimately, all parties converge in Abner’s room. The old man reveals the hiding place of the diamond just before collapsing, and chaos erupts. The Mystery Man makes a last attempt to seize the jewel, but Louise’s clever concealment turns the tables in the most unexpected way.