Watch the trailer for the 4K Restoration of James Whale’s The Old Dark House

Cast from the mold of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” and the many gothic tales in its wake, J. B. Priestley’s 1927 novel Benighted was one of the most popular among the dozens of stories of the late 1920s and early 1930s for the page, stage, and screen about stranded travellers wandering through gloomy, secluded mansions at night.

In their film adaptation, James Whale and his writers Benn Levy and R. C. Sherriff gave the novel a comic spin, bringing the film closer in spirit to the director’s later Bride of Frankenstein. The Old Dark House was thought to be lost in the years after Universal lost the rights, and it was filmmaker Curtis Harrington who rescued it from oblivion.

The film stars Boris Karloff, Charles Laughton, Eva Moore, Gloria Stuart, Melvyn Douglas, and Raymond Massey.

A restoration of James Whale’s The Old Dark Horse will screen as part of the Revivals section of the 55th New York Film Festival (September 28 – October 15).

The Blu-ray is out at the end of October.