The Uninvited

A brother and sister from London buy an empty house on the English coast cheaply, and before long they are hearing crying at night. The house's past holds a woman who died and a granddaughter left behind, and the girl wants to return to it without knowing why. Lewis Allen's film is counted among the first in Hollywood to treat ghosts as real rather than as a joke. The fear is built through smell and sound rather than image, with the scent of mimosa and the cold on the staircase. Ray Milland leads. The main theme by Victor Young later became the jazz standard Stella by Starlight and grew far more famous than the film. Who it is for: viewers who like classic ghost films and horror built from atmosphere. Who it is not for: anyone wanting direct scares, since this proceeds very politely.