Eureka Classics

On a lonely, pine-clad hill overlooking the Hudson, stood the grotesque mansion of an eccentric millionaire…

The source material for Paul Leni’s 1927 silent ‘old dark house’ thriller – John Willard’s stage play – is perhaps best remembered for its 1939 talkie starring Bob Hope or 1979 version with Honor Blackman and Edward Fox, but this familiar version is certainly worth your attention, arriving for the first time on Blu-ray from a 4K restoration in Eureka’s Masters of Cinema series.

Relatives of millionaire Cyrus West gather 20 years after his death to discover the estate has been left to his niece, Annabelle, provided she is legally sane. They then hear that prolific killer the Cat has escaped from a local asylum and could be among them. It’s a creepy 90 minutes, the on-screen intertitles and Robert Israel’s score ramping up the tension on a picture that can’t disguise its age, and benefits from brown sepia or light blue colouring.

There are two informative new commentaries – horror writers Stephen Jones and Kim Newman, and one by Jevin Lyons and Jonathan Rigby – new video essays and interviews with horror experts, and an endorsement for Lucky Strike cigarettes! This limited edition contains a booklet of new writing.

Verdict: A creepier and less jokey version of the stage play classic than you might expect, preserved in as good a version as a 97-year-old film could expect. 8/10

Nick Joy