Movie spotlight
Eight people are invited by an unsigned telegram to a penthouse apartment, where they find themselves locked in and greeted by their unknown host's voice via the radio, who explains that before the night is over each one will be die unless they manage to outwit the ninth guest, Death.
Six people are invited to a strange party at the secluded mansion of a mysterious millionaire, Dr. Venecoff. Upon arrival, they discover that they are the sole guests and are informed by the butler that their host has died. The guests soon realize they are trapped in the mansion and are being killed off one by one, each death mirroring a line from a nursery rhyme.
This early horror-mystery film was a modest production that capitalized on the popular 'whodunit' formula of the era. While not a major critical success, it is remembered for its atmospheric tension and its place in early cinematic horror.
Praised for its suspenseful atmosphere and claustrophobic setting.
Noted for its early use of the 'trapped in a house with a killer' trope.
Criticized for some predictable plot points common in the genre at the time.
Google audience: Audience reception information for this film is not readily available.
The film is notable for being one of the earliest screen adaptations of the 'guest-killing' mystery subgenre, which would become more famously explored in later works like Agatha Christie's 'And Then There Were None'.
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I wonder how many of us would turn up at a dinner nowadays where we didn't know anyone and expect to escape alive? These eight did - and after a good dinner and some fine wine are informed by a radio that resembles a face on the wall, that ...