The Uninvited [VHS]

The Uninvited [VHS]
by Lewis Allen

The Uninvited [VHS]

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Category: VHS Video
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Product details

Actor: Cornelia Otis Skinner, Donald Crisp, Dorothy Stickney, Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey
Director: Lewis Allen
Cinematographer: Charles Lang
Editor: Doane Harrison
Producer: Buddy G. DeSylva
Producer: Charles Brackett
Writer: Dodie Smith
Writer: Dorothy Macardle
Writer: Frank Partos
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog; Spanish (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, HiFi Sound, NTSC
Running Time: 99 minutes
Release Date: 1998-01-01
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: MCA/Universal Home Video
Studio: MCA/Universal Home Video

VHS Movie Reviews of The Uninvited [VHS]

Movie Review: The Uninvited
Summary: 5 Stars

For me, this is THE classic ghost story of all time. It's an amazing period piece of the 1930's, as a brother and sister up from London on vacation discover a deserted mansion atop the ocean cliffs. They fall in love with the place, and are able to buy it for "a song." Turns out the place, and the movie plot, is full of mystery, murder, and ghosts which will intrigue and frighten in a mental and spiritual way that no horror movies can match today. Or, few even matched back then.

It also has a fine love story, on several levels, and some nice comedy to boot.

You'll have a great time with this one, and I think it will be a favorite for you if you love classic gothic tales of suspense. I can't wait to get the DVD when it's available too.

Movie Review: Great movie for Halloween! Without the modern need to resort to bloodbaths.
Summary: 5 Stars

1944's "The Uninvited" with Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey is my favorite movie to watch on Halloween. It's one of the best haunting movies ever made and a great example of how a film can be scary without resorting to bloodbaths, or any blood at all; just through suspense, mood, a few simple effects, good writing and good performances.

Movie Review: The best
Summary: 5 Stars

This is one of the best ghost stories on film. If you consider the time, the effects are amazing. Ray Milland is always great! A must see for any lover of ghost stories

Movie Review: One of the best of its genre
Summary: 5 Stars

Some of the bad reviews garnered by the recent "The Others" (2001) make one ponder just what it is that audiences now expect from classic genres such as the ghost story. Have we now seen it all? Does there have to be some amazing twist or dazzling special effects to make such a film work for today's audiences?
Perhaps, but I don't think so. Just about everything that could be done with a ghost story had already been done by 1900, yet fine stories continue to be written. The appeal is in the execution, not the explanation, and every good writer of ghost stories will know that the trick is in the gathering of unsettling details and their resulting effects on the protagonists.

This is true of fiction and it is equally true of movies. One of the best of the genre is "The Uninvited," a staple of AMC cable network, but worth having on one's video shelf (and hopefully soon on one's DVD shelf).

"The Uninvited" is about a brother and sister (the Welsh Ray Milland and the American Ruth Hussey, both here effortlessly English) who buy a remote seaside house in Cornwall and are then unable to afford to get rid of it when strange things start happening. Milland meets Gail Russell (not so effortlessly English), the sweet and over-sheltered granddaughter of the retired sea captain (Donald Crisp), from whom the house was purchased. They are attracted to one another, but it soon becomes evident that the source of the haunting is in her tangled family history and that something in the house is a danger to her.

The effects of "The Uninvited" are simple and traditional, often as simple as someone walking into a room and saying, "Oh, isn't it cold in here! And what is that strange aroma?" But it all works: the spectral mists, the ghostly weeping, the dog that won't go up the stairs, the ad hoc seance, and so on.

My only objection: the visits to a super-efficient insane asylum for the rich break the accumulating mood. On the other hand, the asylum is made so creepy that one might well happily retreat to a haunted house! (original review 2001)

Movie Review: The Uninvited
Summary: 4 Stars

This was a movie that scared my older sister when she was younger. I had never seen this movie but after hearing my sister talk about this movie for years I had to find it and buy it. It is a classic creepy movie. Great price and very fast shipping.

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Summary of The Uninvited [VHS]

One of the spookiest ghost stories ever put to film, The Uninvited is also one of the few classic haunted-house movies to treat the subject with respect and seriousness. Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey play a brother and sister who leave the city to live in a beautiful old house dramatically perched on a cliff overlooking the Cornish coast. As they discover some of the house's peculiarities--the unexplained chill that settles in certain rooms, the aroma of mimosas that wafts through the house, flowers that wilt when brought inside--they are told by local girl Gail Russell that the house is haunted, by the spirit of Russell's mother no less. The rationalist city folk first scoff at the idea but as Milland slowly falls in love with the frightened girl he investigates the legends and discovers some startling hidden truths. Donald Crisp costars as Russell's humorless, hard-bitten grandfather who forbids her visits to the house. Handsomely shot against the beautiful Cornish countryside, director Lewis Allen wisely suggests more than he shows and the uneasy tone and quietly restrained direction looks forward to such films as The Haunting and The Legend of Hell House. Though Allen ultimately reveals a suitably spine-tingling apparition, some of the film's best moments are chilling in their simplicity: nocturnal moans, slamming doors, and the dog's whimpering fear of the upstairs. --Sean Axmaker

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