The Face at the Window
( dir. Charles Villiers
)
Australia
:
D. B. O'Connor Feature Films
,
1919
Z1871018
1919
single work
film/TV
horror
thriller
science fiction
crime
An early Australian film with shades of both horror and science fiction. As Australian Screen points out,
It almost defies belief that the Australian film industry failed to produce a single horror movie in its first 70 years. It is understandable that during the 1948-68 period in which almost all horror movies were banned in Australia there was no incentive, but looking back further only a small handful of early Australian features contain any elements of the fantastic, let alone outright horror.
The Face at the Window (based on an 1897 stage melodrama) is one of this handful of films, though it falls more strongly into the genre of 'thriller'. Nevertheless, as Robert Hood points out, the film is
A light spoof about a master criminal named 'Le Loup' (suggestive of Marcel Allain and Pierre Soubestre's Fantomas), who wears a grotesque mask and howls maniacally as he stalks his victims. He kills a prominent Parisian banker and a detective. But a mad doctor uses 'an electrical device' to revive the dead detective momentarily, giving him time to write out Le Loup's real name. Le Loup is shot while trying to escape. The stabbing scene had to be cut before censors would pass it for screening in Sydney.
Sources:
Australian Screen, 'Horror in Australian Cinema' (http://aso.gov.au/titles/collections/horror-in-australian-cinema/). (Sighted: 29/6/2012)
Hood, Robert. 'Killer Koalas: Australian (and New Zealand) Horror Films'. Tabula Rasa (http://www.tabula-rasa.info/AusHorror/OzHorrorFilms2.html). (Sighted: 29/6/2012)
