Director Paul Leni does everything in his power to make the story pop, from the shot selections to the title cards.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 28, 2024

Despite the familiarity of the story, this version still surprises and has some genuinely creepy moments.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 22, 2024

With plenty of trickery and treachery on screen to match the inventive artifice of the film itself, this is a stylised succession saga of murder and madness, and a romantic melodrama with claws.

| Apr 11, 2024

A riot of playful visual invention.

| Jul 18, 2023

A horror film from which I can't extract any significant fright in its gothic mansion inhabited by stereotyped characters, despite the expressionist aesthetic that regularly captures Leni's technical skills. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 6/10 | Jan 8, 2023

It is not only in actual cinematic effects that Mr. Leni's work is telling; there are sequences in the story which reveal his absolute command of the players.

| Sep 29, 2022

Has chills, thrills, and excitement a-plenty to offer.

| Sep 28, 2022

Leni has produced a good mystery picture -- good even to those who know what exactly is coming.

| Sep 28, 2022

The Cat and the Canary may be written down as an exceptionally effective chiller.

| Sep 28, 2022

While the players give splendid performances it is Leni's directorial handling of the spooky situations that brings the picture to glory.

| Sep 28, 2022

Has suspense and real thrills.

| Sep 28, 2022

It is clever - perhaps a little too clever, sometimes so clever that the meaning is obscured.

| Sep 28, 2022

The great weakness of the film lies in the too rapid alternation of comedy bits and murder.

| Sep 28, 2022

Its photographic effects of light and shade are above all of singular interest. [Full review in Spanish]

| Sep 28, 2022

A good mystery picture, mysteriously depicted on the screen, and will keep you on the qui vive with its suspense most of the time.

| Sep 28, 2022

This adaptation is rather effective, as mystery play filmizations go these days.

| Sep 28, 2022

Employs lowering shadows and unexpected camera angles to such good purpose that no one misses the noise.

| Sep 28, 2022

A mystery play that mystifies, a thrill that thrills, a picture so perfectly timed, and mechanically correct that it never lets down for a minute, but develops from one tense and blood-curdling situation into another with convincing realism.

| Sep 28, 2022

The most baffling and sensational mystery picture ever filmed.

| Sep 28, 2022

The picture has so much motion that when one thrill goes out the window another one comes out the door.

| Sep 28, 2022