The Ghoul (1933)

 "I shall be among the trees, waiting..."

There are quite a few '30s horror films, in the wake of Frankenstein, starring Boris Karloff. They are, as you would expect B movies. They have their charms, I'm rather fond of them, but you wouldn't mostly say they were actually very good.

Except this one.

Plot-wise, it's nothing special: an old man with a stolen Egyptian artifact manages to cheat death by means of ancient yet cursed magic. Yet the cast is startlingly excellent. Not only is there Karloff but also a typically camp Ernest Thesiger, a delightfully dastardly Cedric Harwicke, and even an alarmingly young and splendidly splenetic Anthony Bushelll as our heroic yet delightfully rude leading man. We even get Ralph bloody Richardson.

The film is well shot, certainly more so than one would expect for a B movie in the period. There are some nice touches- the leading lady's friend has a genuinely funny infatuation with a visiting "sheikh", clearly not having got over Rudolph Valentino. There's a comedy vicar who turns out to be not quite what he seems. Most of all, there's genuine suspense so that, despite the slow pace, there's none of the dragging quality often found with these sorts of films. 

An unexpectedly pleasant surprisew. Even Karloff's relatively limited screen time can't spoil this one.