BEST VINTAGE GOTHIC HORROR
Both Famous and Forgotten
A young woman, an old dark house, mysterious corridors, a charming (usually older) man, these are some of the hallmarks that make up a gothic tale. Stories focused on a heroine on the edge of either maturity or a nervous breakdown, who takes up residence in a gothic manor, and finds herself haunted by the house’s past. Sometimes that haunting comes from the supernatural, and sometimes it comes from the people who still inhabit the house. When romance is involved, as it is in several of the films on this list, our heroine must determine whether the danger she feels lurking behind every corner comes from the man she is in love with, or something/one else. These stories often intertwine the psychological with the sexual to weave a dramatic tale of dread. Below are five great gothic horror tales, both famous and forgotten.
Rebecca (1940)
No, we are not talking about the widely panned remake of Daphne du Maurier’s classic gothic romance, but the original film adaptation directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Joan Fontaine stars as the second Mrs. de Winter opposite Laurence Olivier’s charming, mercurial Maxim de Winter. What makes this gothic horror story so frightening is the fact that there is no ghost, but the oppressive memory of Maxim’s dead wife Rebecca, whom the audience never sees, haunts over every aspect of life at Maxim’s grand estate Manderley. Of course, Rebecca’s lingering presence is only made worse by the housekeeper Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson), who harbors such an obsession with her former mistress, one would not necessarily be wrong in assuming the two women were more than just friendly. Of course, lesbian overtones were explicitly forbidden by the Hays code, so any insinutaion of romance between the woman had to be kept as undertone.
Secret Beyond the Door (1947)
Fritz Lang’s Secret Beyond the Door takes clear inspiration from Rebecca, but do not be fooled, it stands on its own feet as a film. Joan Bennett stars as wealthy heiress Celia, who, after a whirlwind romance with Mark (Michael Redgrave), an architect she meets while on vacation, marries him and moves to his New England home. There she meets his sister Caroline (Anne Revere) who runs the house, his mysterious secretary Miss Robey (Barbara O’Neil), and his son David (Mark Dennis), from Mark’s first marriage that he never told her about. Mark also has an odd hobby. He has built an entirely new wing in his palatial estate. Each room in this new wing is a recreation of the rooms where gruesome murders took place. He gleefully shows off his collection to anyone interested, but there is one room in this wing that he forbids entry to. Couple that with Celia’s suspicion that he may have killed his first wife, and she needs to know just who the man she married really is.
Corridor of Mirrors (1948)
Mifanwy Conway (Edana Romney) is a wealthy young woman looking for excitement. She gets swept up by the older, charming artist Paul Mangin (Eric Portman) and begins an affair with him. As their tryst continues, it becomes clear that Paul has an obsession with the past. Specifically, the renaissance era. See, when he was in Italy after the First World War, years before he and Mifanwy ever met, he discovered a portrait of a woman who looked identical to her. He became transfixed by the portrait and took it upon himself to find out everything he could about the woman, whose name was Venetia. He became convinced that he was the reincarnation of Ventia’s lover. When he saw Mifanwy one night in a club, he was struck by her resemblance to Venetia and was certain that Mifanwy was the reincarnation of his lost love. But Mifanwy is a modern woman, and although she was initially swept up by Paul’s romanticism and grand gestures, she is not a woman looking to live in the past.
The Innocents (1961)
Deborah Kerr stars in this adaptation of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw as a young woman who becomes the governess for two orphans in the Victorian Bly Manor. Once there she begins to see who she believes are the ghosts of the former governess, Mary Jessel (Clytie Jessop), and Peter Quint (Peter Wyngarde) who both died tragically after a doomed affair. When the children in her care start exhibiting strange behaviors, the governess becomes convinced that they are being possessed by Mary and Peter’s spirits. On the surface, this seems like a pretty straightforward ghost story, but it is anything but. As the governess is the only person to ever see the two ghosts, it is left up to interpretation whether the ghosts are real or solely a figment of her imagination. Couple that with her relationship with the manor’s housekeeper Mrs. Grose (Megs Jenkins), and the film could easily be read as a horror movie about sexual repression.
The Haunting (1963)
We are not discussing the truly heinous 1999 remake, but the classic and unsettling 1963 version of Shirlley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. Dr. John Markway (Richard Johnson), an anthropologist with interests in the paranormal, invites two women to come spend a week with him in the reportedly haunted Hill House. The two women are Nell (Julie Harris), a lonely young woman who once experienced a supernatural event, and Theo (Claire Bloom), a bold, self-assured woman with ESP. Theo is also one of the first openly lesbian characters in film history to not be portrayed as a villain, and also not suffer a tragic fate. Luke (Russ Tamblyn), the mansion’s heir, and a non-believer in the paranormal also joins the group. Dr. Markway’s goal is to prove once and for all that the house is either haunted or not haunted, and he thinks Nell and Theo will help him get to the bottom of it. Like with The Innocents, much is left up to interpretation, but Nell comes to believe that the house is speaking directly to her.
