The Uninvited (1944) by Lewis Allen

Director: Lewis Allen

Year: 1944

Country: USA

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Haunted House

Plot:

Heading out to the countryside, a brother and sister find themselves moving into a mansion along the coastline, where they learn about the ghosts inhabiting the area and try to find a way of appeasing the spirits within before they manage to harm their friends.

Review:

There really isn't a whole lot here. Among the better parts here is the film's rather strong sense of atmosphere, as there are points at the right moments where the house can be pretty creepy. The design, which is filled with a great arrangement of furniture and an especially well-placed twisting stairway in the middle of the house that manages to create a really effective atmosphere for the film, gets some great amount of suspense with the general design and with a lot of openness in the windows everywhere allowing a lot of light at times this one serves as a solid haunting-ready location.

There's also an important factor in the design of the stairwell towards how the conclusion plays out, since it's the film's single best scene with the ghost appearing to float down in a rather ethereal manner that only works because of how the staircase was a spiraling design rather than a traditional one. There's some solid work in building up the idea of ghost here with the music being played, the howling wind and floating voices that match the stories told about the house which match well with the creeping fog rolling across the cliff- tops, and a really creepy séance in the middle of the film that has an odd creep factor to it really selling this one rather well.

The last positive here is that there's also a really great final twenty minutes here that always manages to get some action in the film, which are some of the best parts of the film, generating the full extent of her connection to the past and letting some nice haunting scenes come about here with a solid resolution. These are its main points of interest since it has a lot of flaws present. One of the biggest issues is that the film takes a near eternity to get going. The beginning is mostly concerned with incredibly boring tripe about the families getting along, their moving in and meeting the neighbors, and the utterly bland romance that feels so out of place in a film like this.

The distrust here doesn't make the film any bit of entertaining due to it being so dull to sit through and takes time away from the ghost angle, which should be the main point with this one. Ignoring it by focusing it on a really lousy subplot about the family members being secretive about the reasons for a romance to be a bad thing isn't compelling viewing, and makes it seem all the longer when the ghosts finally appear. They're just endless and really drag this one out intermittently. This is the film's most pressing problem, as there's nothing at all interesting going on at the beginning of the film. It's not really scary, and there is very little reason to get into the first half of this as the film simply seems concerned with useless jabbering on about elements that aren't interesting, where it all results in a long period in the film before the ghosts actually show up. It's the one thing that really drags the film down.

Overview: **.5/5

A really overrated horror-drama without much going for it, this one is more of a rather talkative romantic drama than an outright genre effort, so it does feel quite sluggish at times, going for the wrong tone than some may want. Those with a tolerance for these kinds of genre efforts, who don't mind the flaws on display, or who are curious about it, will have the most to like, while most others should heed caution.