"Haunted Spooks" is a 25-minute live action short film from 1920, so it will have its 100th anniversary soon. If you take a look at the director, writer and cast, you will realize that here we have a black-and-white silent film. But the name of lead actor Harold Lloyd should already be sufficient to know. The title sounds a bit more spooky than his works usually do and there are some scenes with (alleged) ghosts too, but it is never about horror or anything, even if some people say so and some lists here in IMDb include "horror" in the title and include this movie. I was never scared watching this one, but sadly I was also never really entertained. Lloyd gives us his usual routine and has a few strong moments. his talent is clearly visible and he elevates the material by a lot, but not by enough to let me recommend the watch here. A common problem for silent films is the lack of sufficient intertitles in quantity and this is a huge problem here too. We see characters talk from start to finish, but we don't even find out what they are saying more often than every 30 seconds perhaps. Thumbs down. Don't watch.
Review of Haunted Spooks
