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Don’t Go in There: 17 Essential Haunted-House Movies
Steven Soderbergh’s new take on the genre opens this weekend.
Most of The Uninvited, based on Dorothy Macardle’s 1941 novel, Uneasy Freehold, is lighthearted and breezy, coasting along on the banter and genuine affection between music critic Roderick (Ray Milland) and his sister, Pamela (Ruth Hussey), who stumble onto a Cornish cliffside house while on holiday and make the impulsive decision to buy it. There are red flags — the owner’s willingness to accept an unusually low price, their dog’s whimpering fear of the upper rooms — but the house is a backdrop for more romance than horror, a place where young Stella (Gail Russell), so haunted by her mother’s death, is gradually brought back to life by Ray. Guillermo del Toro’s lush gothic romance unfolds at British family estate Allerdale Hall, outwardly imposing but rotting from within, a description that can also be applied to its inhabitants, con artists Thomas (Tom Hiddleston) and his sister Lucille Sharpe (Jessica Chastain), ostensibly titled and aristocratic, but secretly surviving on scraps and grasping at wealth.
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