I recently took part in the 15 Horror Movie meme circulating on Facebook. I'm not a huge fan of the genre, knowing far too well how blood spatters and spurts from a dying body to be able to suspend disbelief for most types of horror, so I go hard for the psychologically damaging kind of horror.
The following Tod Browning-Lon Chaney Sr. collaboration was my #15 pick. It's a disturbing little thriller titled THE UNKNOWN, which features The Man Of A Thousand Faces as a murderous, poly-thumbed criminal hiding out from the law in a circus pretending to be an armless knife thrower. He falls in love with the boss' daughter, played by an incredibly young Joan Crawford, despite major competition from the strongman [Norman Kerry, later to cockblock Lon again as Raoul in THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA]. But Crawford's character has a pathological fear of being held, and I'll say no more. The shot that creeps me out more than a week of THE EXORCIST showings is Lon's reaction shot [you'll know it when you see it] near the end. I'm not wild about the film's very lush but sometimes far too blatant new score, but I suppose that's the ballyhoo the movie originally got in the fancier moviehouses. Enjoy:
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