'The Haunted House' is a treat full of tricks

The Haunted House (1921)
Starring: Buster Keaton, Virginia Fox, Joe Roberts, and Mark Hamilton
Directors: Buster Keaton and Eddie Cline
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

On the run from the law, a bank teller (Keaton) who has been wrongfully accused of counterfeiting and trying to rob his place of employment, takes refuge in a house seemingly haunted by ghosts and demons.

"The Haunted House" is fun, funny, but most of all, good-natured and cute. Sure, it's the story of crooks (led by the towering Joe Roberts) who are using a small-town bank to exchange their counterfiet dollars for real ones; and sure, an innocent, if mishap-prone, bank teller (Buster Keaton) ends up blamed for their crimes; and, yeah, Roberts and his gang end up kidnapping the bank president's daughter (Virginia Fox)... but, despite all of that, this movie has a jovial air about it that makes it breeze by while you're watching. You even forget how fundamentally silly it is that Keaton, an adult, is scared and confused by men in devil and skeleton costumes, or by people wearing sheets pretending to be ghosts. (And as is my habit when reviewing these short films, I'm not going to go into too man details about the jokes and gags, because that would ruin the film for you. It's established up front that the hauntings and demonic infestations are

High points of the film include a series of gags involving paper currency, glue, and a botched bank robbery; Keaton's character first reacting with fear to the fake hauntings and then with marked sarcasm once he discovers it's just a bunch of guys in costumes; Keaton's interactions with the "devil" in the house; and Keaton's adventures in the Afterlife following a last-minute dramatic twist. There are also some really funny slapstick bits involving a trick staircase, and a very clever--and surprisinglyspecial effects sequence that is actually the film's single truly unnerving moment. (It's also completely out of place with everything else in the picture, but I suspect it was just too good a concept to not use.)


Aside from the out-of-place special effects gag (which is still excellent, just out of place), the only other real complaint I can mount about the film is that Virginia Fox's character needed a little more screen time and development. What we get is a very perfunctory "this is our damsel in distress" and not much else, and the film would have benefitted greatly if just a little more time had been devoted to her. These weaknesses still result in me rating the film a very high Eight on my Ten-star scale rather than a Nine.

But just don't take my word for how fun "The Haunted House" is. I've embedded it below, via YouTube, for your viewing pleasure!


Trivia: Buster Keaton liked the stair gags so much that he developed further routines and included a similar idea in "The Electric House" (1922).