Schoolteachers Joyce Howard and Tucker McGuire are off to the Yorkshire moors for a holiday, the same moors where a former colleague disappeared a year earlier. When they get caught up in a storm, they find shelter in the secluded mansion of James Mason. Mason's an acrimonious and unstable man, and despite multiple warnings from him, his housekeeper Mary Clare, and a possible link between Mason and the missing teacher, she falls for him and decides to stay around for a while. But then she finds a skeleton in a locked room (literally), with a necklace that she recognizes as the missing teacher's...
Also known as Terror House and Moonlight Madness, this movie combines elements from 30 mysteries, Gothic/victorian drama's and even a bit of early/proto film noir. Mason ('Odd Man Out') was still quite young but already able to carry a movie, and gives a solid performance. Howard ('They Met In The Dark') is also good, stuffy at first but more radiant once she takes a romantic interest in Mason. There is also some nice atmospheric cinematography by Gunther Krampf ('Nosferatu') inside the mansion and on the foggy moors. The directing by Leslie Arliss ('The Wicked Lady') is competent enough, but his screenplay is a bit too slow, and he added some unnecessary and jarring comic relief in the middle. The twist is not too surprising, the ending is pretty good tho. An enjoyable movie, but it could've been much better. 6+/10
