I like to do a 'decades' theme, starting with the 20s. I suppose everyone would think the obvious choice for the 20s would be Nosferatu, but for the past few years I've for some reason got stuck on Phantom Of The Opera. There's just something magical about its atmosphere, a combination of expressionist tunnels, secret oubliettes and sinister figures glimpsed in shadows that is just so bewitching, and it's come to kind of symbolise the start of my darkened-room evening of Halloween entertainment.
I tend to come a bit unstuck with the 40s as outside the Val Lewton cycle, which I see so often anyway, the pickings were rather slim. There's always Britain's good old 'Dead Of Night' I suppose, and even the Alistair Sim mystery Green For Danger is good for some spills and chills. Sticking in the British vein, even the period gothic melodrama Blanche Fury is quite unsettlingly dark and brooding, despite its florid technicolor. Two American classics from the decade I'd love to see, but haven't got my hanRAB on, are the ghost stories The Uninvited and The Unseen.