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Poor but honest gypsy Carlos (Eric Portman) is deeply in love with
young Maria Marten (Sophie Stewart), but she spurns him in favour of rich
squire Cowder (Tod Slaughter), a magistrate, who promises her the world,
even to go to London with her, to get her into his bed ... & foolishly
enough, she gives in one night ...
Of course he doesn't keep any of his promises afterwards & loses
all interest in her, which leaves her broken - but her father
(D.J.Williams) blames it
all on gypsy Carlos, whom he never liked, & squire
Cowder does all he can reaffirming his suspicions.
Soon, Cowder loses everything at the gambling table, & thus decides
to marry a rich society lady, which totally breaks Maria ... above all
because she is pregnant from Cowder. When her father finds out though, he
throws her out of his house (still thinking the child is from Carlos),
& in desperation, Maria goes to Cowder, who makes her more empty
promises, lures her into a barn (yes, it's the red barn), shoots her &
buries her right at the spot ... but accidently he buries his pistol with
her.
When Maria's father decides to reconcile with his daughter, he can't
find her anywhere, but everything suggests she was taken away by that
gypsy. But Carlos, that gypsy, is actually looking for her as well, &
soon tries to gather evidence from squire Cowder, but he is somehow chased
off by Cowder's men & Cowder organizes a posse to hunt him down.
Finally the posse manages to corner him in a barn, yup the red barn, &
it seems it's curtains for Carlos, when Coder's own dog starts digging
exactly where Maria's grave is ... & when Cowder gets overly nervous,
everything including the local police, gets more than a little suspicious
... & ultimately Cowder is forced to dig up the girl again & the
murder weapon, his own gun ... doing so, he goes mad.
In the end, Cowder sits in his cell, awaiting his execution when he
hears the hangman got ill & he won't be executed today after all if no
volunteer should be found. But ultimately the volunteer is found, in no
other than gypsy Carlos himself ...
Tod Slaughter, a popular stage actor of his day specializing in horror
roles, was already in his 50's when he gave his screen debut with Murder
in the Red Barn, based on one of his most popular stage performances.
The film itself is less all-out horror than a rural drama with grim to
spooky undertones. Everything about this film is reminiscent of a
stageplay, from the introduction of the characters at the beginning to the
stale direction, the somewhat stilted dialogues & the very theatrical
style of (over-)acting (especially in the case of Tod Saughter, a ham if
there ever was one). This all gives the film a raw quality though, often
amiss in more refined (genre-)movies.
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