[7.7/10] I’m not knowledgeable enough to know whether *Arsenic and Old Lace* is the first true horror comedy, but if not, it has to be one of the earliest great examples of the form. The screwball elements are outstanding, with a rapid-fire sort of comic energy that makes things feel enjoyably ridiculous from the minute Mortimer Brewster arrives at his aunts’ family home. But there’s also parts of it that are legitimately scary and macabre, which lend themselves as much to mood as they do any actual horror.

Cary Grant holds the center of the film, as a manic, whirling dervish of a main character. In a strange way, Grant’s performance here feels like a precursor to the turn from a young Michael Keaton in fellow horror-comedy *Beetlejuice*, with tons of nervous energy and a cartoonish like exuberance at all things. Grant nearly jumps off the celluloid here, doling out double-takes like it’s elderberry wine, running around and tripping over furniture, and diving into scenes and conversation to try to keep this den of insane cats from scrambling too far away.

But the real comic treat of the film are his two aunts, Abby (Josephine Hull) and Martha (Jean Adair). There’s an undercurrent of comic irony that runs throughout the film, where these two kindly old ladies, who are themselves aghast at the thought of scary movies, ill-manners, and all manner of upsetting things, have no compunction about poisoning the lonely old men who pass through their home and having twelve of them buried in their basement. The contrast between their stately, warm and motherly demeanor, and their obliviousness to the gravity and morality of their deeds makes for the film’s biggest laughs.

They’re not the only fun characters in the film’s comic milieu though. On my first watch, Teddy (“John Alexander”) was my favorite part. The way he imagines himself as Teddy Roosevelt (replete with him yelling “chaaaaaaaaarge!” as he runs up the stairs), and everyone’s playful humoring his delusion, makes for another dose of entertaining ridiculousness that lasts throughout the picture, and gives the film another loony figure to mix and match with the other wacky visitors and antagonists who darken the Brewsters’ doorstep.

That’s where the horror elements come in. In a bit of a contrived twist, Mortimer’s long lost brother, Johnny (Raymond Massey), returns to his childhood home for....reasons unknown. Still, he comes along with twelve murders under his belt, one dead body to get rid of, a menacing and surgery-ravaged face, and most of all, his squirrely second, Dr. Einstein (the inimitable Peter Lorre). There’s a terrifying element to Johnny, even amid the silliness around him, that adds just a touch of scariness to what is otherwise a light and ridiculous film.

Much of that menace comes from the use of light and shadow and the cinematography of the film. Most of the action of the film takes place in one locale, but cinematographer Sal Polito changes the feeling of a particular scene by how he and his team frame the proceedings. Sometimes, that just means shutting of all the lights in the house and following the action as silhouetted figures skulk around the floorboards. Sometimes it means letting Johnny’s shadow loom large on the far wall as he makes demands of a comparatively shrinking Dr. Einstein, or the shadow of a pair of forceps break across a tied-up Mortimer’s face. And sometimes it just means letting the perspective dart back and forth amid the uptempo wackiness to try to keep up with all that’s happening.

The same goes for the production design, which takes a film that is, self-evidently, adapted from a stage play, and used the Brewster family homestead as a tremendous sounding board for so much insane and macabre activity. The way the house itself feels full of nooks and crannies, rooms and other tucked away places we have a sense of even if we barely get to see them, speaks to the lived-in feel of the place and the suggestion of action that helps fill in the gaps.

There’s also a strange dose of meta-humor to the film, which feels oddly comforting to a present day viewer, more used to a post-modern take on this sort of material. Mortimer recounts the dopey behavior of a character in a play he saw, only to be inveigled by the bad guy while pantomiming the same behavior. A local cop continually regales Mortimer with details from the play he’s writing, only to have themes or ideas filter their way into the real world. And at times, the characters come close to breaking the fourth wall, almost making eye contact with the audience as if to say, “can you believe it?”

The only downside to all of this is that, in places, *Arsenic and Old Lace* feels overstretched. It introduces so many plots and subplots -- Mortimer getting married, the aunts’ murder plot, the return of Johnny, getting Teddy committed, the local cop’s playwriting, and the lieutenant wondering what the hell’s going on -- that sometimes none of them has time to breathe. When the film jumps from one to another, it can have a nicely frenetic quality, but in others, it can leave your head spinning, or in the case of the last fifteen minutes or so, feel like the movie is stretching when the major action is already over.

If there’s a theme to what can mostly be called a big bundle of comic energy of a movie, it’s the idea that we judge by image and expectation more than action and reality. The kindly aunts can get away with murdering a dozen lonely old men (and granted, they think of it as a mercy), and nobody bothers to suspect them or that anything’s amiss because they are, well, kindly old ladies. Meanwhile, the Frankenstein’s monster-looking Johnny gets derision and suspicion wherever he goes because of his appearance. It’s not the most pointed satire in the world, but it’s an irony deep in the DNA of the film that makes it richer in hindsight.

Still, what makes *Arsenic and Old Lace* so enjoyable at the end of the day isn’t that irory; it’s the surfeit of farce and the nicely balanced horror that mixes and matches the Halloween-y and the absurd. There’s a winking looniness through the film, one that pairs up its chills and kills with chuckles and guffaws. Maybe *Arsenic and Old Lace* isn’t the first horror comedy, but it’s a great one wherever it falls in the timeline.