Starring Eduard Franz, Valerie French, Grant Richards, Henry Daniell, Lumsden Hare
Directed by Edward L. Cahn
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)
A university professor fears a family curse has finally caught up with him and his brother, a curse that left their ancestors with headless corpses.
A low budget but very efficient horror film, with producer Robert E. Kent and director Edward L. Cahn reuniting after collaborating on It! The Terror From Beyond Space, Invisible Invaders, and other genre fare, the picture still stands up well with plenty of unsettling material. A very creepy atmosphere is maintained throughout, aided by Paul Dunlap's music score, which although it borrows liberally from his past work, features some key eerie organ notes at appropriate times. Daniell, a familiar face from mysteries of the 1940s, makes a great 1950s villain, scoffing at his adversaries and forgoing any effort to be charming to his guests, delivering a flat "What a pleasure," when they arrive. We never see any really big shocks on camera, but tight editing by the filmmakers, and progressively staged revelations in the screenplay add chills at the right moments.
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