House of Horrors + The Brute Man

The shadowy figure of Rondo Hatton creeps appropriately over the opening-credits sequences of both House of Horrors and The Brute Man, the two official films in which the hulking journalist-turned-actor stepped into the role of a spine-snapping villain known as The Creeper (he initially played the unrelated Hoxton Creeper in the 1944 Sherlock Holmes picture The Pearl of Death). Hatton, afflicted with the excess-growth-hormone disorder acromegaly, was a natural choice for the role physically, but he also brings an unexpected depth of humanness to the character intended for a Universal franchise.

The nameless creeper of House of Horrors is pulled from the river and nursed back to health by discouraged artist Marcel DeLange (Martin Kosleck), who had just been lamenting his sad financial state to his adorable cat, Pietro. Instead of taking a final jump in the water as planned, Marcel accidentally finds renewed inspiration in his rescued “perfect Neanderthal Man,” whom he uses as a model for a new sculpture and as someone who can enact sweet, savage revenge for him. The Creeper, pleased that someone is not only unafraid of him but treats him like a friend, is up to both tasks, sitting patiently for an imposing sculpture (later the inspiration for the statuette that has been handed out to Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award–winners every year since 2002), and dutifully disposing of those who’ve wronged the artist—beginning with the critic who lost him a crucial sale by describing his work as “pure unadulterated tripe with an overtone of sheer lunacy” (much of the film’s dialogue is similarly snappy).

In The Brute Man, he gets a name—Hal Moffat—and it’s a lovely, blind piano teacher he accidentally meets, Helen Paige (Jane Adams), who serves to expose his vulnerabilities. Even though he enters her apartment through her fire escape suddenly while being pursued by the police, Helen, unable to witness his menacing appearance, takes him for a kind soul. And despite the fact that he’s actually a vicious murderer, we too feel there’s goodness deep inside, especially when we learn that his disfigurement was the result of a college prank gone wrong and his victims are those responsible for ruining his life.

Equal parts police procedural, (proto-)slasher, revenge thriller, and noir, Jean Yarbrough’s Creeper films, both from 1946 and just about an hour each, are great showcases for Hatton, and better than their reception would indicate. Written off by many as insensitive or exploitative, with The Brute Man the subject of a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode 50 years after its release, the films are still notable pieces of horror history for exploring similar themes that genre outings like Darkman later examined—do victims deformed at the hands of others eventually become the monsters they resemble?—and for presenting one of the earliest film prequels of this, or any, genre. House of Horrors claims to be Hatton’s introduction to the screen, but as he had already appeared in numerous tiny, mostly uncredited bit parts, it was essentially his debut as a leading man. But Hatton passed away at 51 before either film had even opened, and The Creeper was no more—even if Yarbrough rather strangely made an unconnected film with that title just two years later. 🩸