A perfect rainy late night haunted house flick. It moves slow, but that’s because it’s carrying so much atmosphere on its back. After skeptic Georges Rivière accepts Arturo Dominici’s shady wager to stay a night in an old manor where no one seems to live to see morning, we get deep into that black-and-white European ghostly vibe. It’s where the staircases are always long and shadowy, the trees are all bare serpentine branches and the constant draft keeps blowing out everyone’s candles. It’s Gothic to the max. Director Antonio Margheriti gets way into it. Meanwhile, Riz Ortolani’s music score is a beehive of organ that hits all of the right spooky-ooky cliches. Great scream queen Barbara Steele, she of the eyes as big as twin supermoons, scores a good part here as a mysterious beauty who lives in the supposedly empty house.