Dead of Night (1945)

[Todd Tomorrow]

Originally Posted by Cinema84

The Innocents is another one I "didn't get". I think I need to give it another watch under the proper conditions.

The Uninvited is maybe a little underwhelming for modern audiences, however it was the first haunted house movie not to be a comedy. I think The Innocents is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful b&w films ever made though.

Like most anthology films Dead of Night is a bit of a mixed bag. Two segments are classics (the ventriloquist dummy, the haunted mirror), one is good (the children’s party) and the other two are forgettable. The hallucinatory pay-off to the framing story still gives me the creeps, I remember being utterly terrified the first time I saw that. Overall it’s a great movie.