The Uninvited (1944) • Blu-ray [Criterion Collection]

A composer and his sister discover that the only reason they’re able to afford a beautiful Gothic seacoast mansion is down to the house’s unsavoury past…

written by Remy Dean.

Avid readers of ghost stories and veteran viewers of haunted house movies won’t find too many surprises in The Uninvited. It might be considered clichéd nowadays, but that guaranteed satisfaction is part of its lasting charm and why respected directors (including Martin Scorsese and Guillermo Del Toro) still list it as one of the greatest haunted house films ever made.

Newcomers to a tight-knit Cornish community move into an old clifftop house, overlooking the “haunted shores”, uncover dark family secrets and awaken a vindictive ghost that threatens a young vulnerable maiden who’s the last in the cursed family line — a perfect batch of ingredients, mixed in an era before the horror genre felt the need to reinvent the formula and be more post-modern.