The Night Has Eyes

Supposed to be a mystery thriller of the old school, "Terror House" is neither very mysterious nor very thrilling. But it is old school - and also very old hat. It is a British-made film being released in this country through PRC exchanges and shapes up only as supporting fare on dual bills, and probably predestined for those all-horror shows. There is interest of a sort in its unwinding, interest created mainly by striking photographic effects with a foreboding of doom, and the central character, a sinister figure, capitally played by James Mason. "Terror House" is the man's estate, to which two schoolmarms come looking for shelter after being trapped by flood while hiking in the Yorkshire Moors. One girl falls in love with him and he with her, although he tells her that for her safety she must soon leave the house, and keeps her door always locked while she is temporarily there. She leaves after meeting the servants, only to come right back. Left alone one day and locked in her room, she climbs out of the window, explores a well-concealed room and finds a skeleton which she believes to be the remains of another schoolteacher friend who had disappeared a year earlier in the vicinity, whom she has reason to believe was murdered in the house. She leaves the house again, and again is drawn back. There she is set upon by the real murderers and her lover cleared of the suspicion that had surrounded him in mystery.