The defence The Arthouse Gremlin
“Its refusal to behave is the point.”
The strange choices create the kind of friction that follows you out of the theatre and into the argument.
Back to trending 
The Cat and the Canary
Comedy · Horror · Mystery · 1939
Relatives gather at a haunted mansion for a will reading where the sole heir is threatened by a clause that could disinherit her if she goes mad, all while a homicidal maniac escapes nearby.
Movie details
The Cat and the Canary
“A CHILL-AND-CHUCKLE CHASE!...A FORTUNE AT STAKE AND A MONSTER AT LARGE!”
1939 Comedy · Horror · Mystery 1h 13m
Critical arithmetic
One number, for now.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
TMDB
6.9 / 10
Community rating
Relatives gather at a haunted mansion for a will reading where the sole heir is threatened by a clause that could disinherit her if she goes mad, all while a homicidal maniac escapes nearby.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over The Cat and the Canary?
For the defence
The Arthouse Gremlin
“The stranger, the better.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Popcorn Loyalist
“Big screen, big feelings, no apologies.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
House on Haunted Hill
Horror · 1959
Frederick Loren invites five strangers to the party of a lifetime and offers each of them $10,000 if they can stay the night in the reportedly haunted house. Armed with a gun for protection, each guest arrives in a hearse and will either leave in it much richer…Or dead.
Extraordinary Tales
Horror · 2015
Five tales by Edgar Allan Poe come to life thanks to a pictorical style animation, five tales that exude madness, pestilence, murder and torture.
The Cellar
Horror · 2022
When Keira Woods' daughter mysteriously vanishes in the cellar of their new house in the country, she soon discovers there is an ancient and powerful entity controlling their home that she will have to face or risk losing her family's souls forever.
Murders in the Rue Morgue
Horror · 1932
In 19th century Paris, a maniac abducts young women and injects them with ape blood in an attempt to prove ape-human kinship but constantly meets failure as the abducted women die.
Tales of Terror
Horror · 1962
Three stories adapted from the work of Edgar Allen Poe: 1) A man and his daughter are reunited, but the blame for the death of his wife hangs over them, unresolved. 2) A derelict challenges the local wine-tasting champion to a competition, but finds the man's attention to his wife worthy of more dramatic action. 3) A man dying and in great pain agrees to be hypnotized at the moment of death, with unexpected consequences.
Night Watch
Mystery · 1973
A woman recovering from a nervous breakdown tries to convince her husband and and the local London police that she has witnessed a murder in the abandoned house next door.
The Private Eyes
Comedy · 1980
The lord and lady of a capacious manor are killed, and the lord's ghost seems to have returned to knock off the staff one by one, causing Inspector Winship and Dr. Tart to investigate the wacky house and its inhabitants.
R.L. Stine's Monsterville: The Cabinet of Souls
Comedy · 2015
Teenage friends must resist the spell of an evil showman staging a house of horrors show in their small town.
The Old Dark House
Comedy · 1963
An American car salesman in London becomes mixed up in a series of fatal occurrences at a secluded mansion.
Manhattan Murder Mystery
Comedy · 1993
A middle-aged couple suspects foul play when their neighbor's wife suddenly drops dead.
Where it lives
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Elliott Nugent
Written by
Walter DeLeon · Lynn Starling
Bob Hope
Wally Campbell
Paulette Goddard
Joyce Norman
John Beal
Fred Blythe
Douglass Montgomery
Charles Wilder
Gale Sondergaard
Miss Lu
Elizabeth Patterson
Aunt Susan
Nydia Westman
Cicily
Court is in session
Put The Cat and the Canary on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist
“Oddness is not depth.”
A film can break every rule and still leave nothing behind but the memory of how hard it tried to be singular.