The Uninvited (1944)

For modern audiences, the movie is more elegantly creepy than truly scary, but it still charms.

The one thing -- and the only thing -- about this film is that it sets out to give you the shivers -- and will do so, if you're readily disposed.

The real strength of the film, though, is its atypical stance part way between psychology and the supernatural, achieving a disturbingly serious effect.

An archetypal 40s ghost story, ambitiously decked out in high studio finery, with billowing curtains and other kinds of hyperromantic kitsch that can put you in mind of death by tuberculosis, though ultimately it's a bit of a letdown.

'This is the only way I can paint you,' says Milland, at the piano. 'Some black keys, and some white.' The speaker might as well be cinematographer Charles Lang, whose painterly compositions -- some black keys, and some white -- make this a spooky gem.

Its thrills and chills are little frissons that tickle the imagination instead of grabbing by the throat.

a serious-minded, visually elegant chiller with real dramatic weight that was destined to stand apart

The Uninvited was...one of the first films to treat the supernatural seriously, and to play ghosts and hauntings as something other than fodder for comedy.

Decidedly more spooky than scary.

An impressive, though outdated, old-fashioned ghost story.