The Uninvited

1944 ghost story

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A brother and sister move into a new house and soon discover that it's haunted. The ghostly inhabitants get in the way of the brother's attempts to get laid.

I think this is probably a more interesting story than it is a movie. As a movie, it impresses with its cinematography. So many of the scenes take place at night and appear to be lit solely by candlelight, but it looks so good. I like movies with creepy houses anyway, and the house in this has enough banister to keep a person interested. The house, along with the cliff and the crashing waves of the ocean, almost become characters themselves. In fact, they're probably more interesting characters than the actual human characters in this. Ray Milland has about as much charisma as the aforementioned banister, and everybody else just kind of acts like you'd expect them to act in a 1940's horror movie. The music, as you'd also expect, has trouble behaving itself. Despite all that, it effectively captures the right moods and contains an interesting narrative. It might not do it quite as effectively as Val Lewton's movies made around the same time, but it's a good, serious early example of the haunted house genre.