In observance of that autumn spell when we celebrate the primal, compulsive instinct of fear, Rainestorm highlights 31 days of spooky scares to season the eerie atmosphere of Halloween.

Reign of terror: 1959

The horror… the horror: William Castle, though not a great filmmaker by any means, was a consummate showman. Many of his films relied on some sort of gimmick to augment the movie experience. In the case of House on Haunted Hill, a trick called “Emergo” was used, nothing more than a skeleton floating above the audience during the climax. It was hardly needed. As cheesy and laughable as the climax is, this remains one of Castle’s better cinema scares. Vincent Price is, of course, delightful as the pecunious Frederick Loren. Jealous of his wife’s presumed schemes to kill him and earn a financial windfall, he throws a party in her honor and mysteriously invites five strangers, offering them each $10,000 if they can survive the night in the titular house. Don’t worry if this set-up makes no sense, it doesn’t really matter. It’s just an exuse to make the lights go out, suspicions rise, and spectral entities appear. There are a couple of genuine scares in the film, usually involving a creepy old woman who appears randomly to frighten the film’s young ingenue.

Halloween haunt: As with the best haunted house movies, all of the rooms are dimly-lit and heavily-shadowed. A trip to the darkened basement is, of course, obligatory.

Tastiest treat: The aforementioned old woman, clearly a mannequin, who floats out of the shadows and back again to give one of the guests a horrible fright and an excuse to scream.

Check the candy for: Alfred Hitchcock, who set about making Psycho after seeing the large grosses this low-budget horror film managed to rake in.

Devilish discourse: “Remember the fun we had when you poisoned me?”

Goes great with: The Old Dark House (1932). What better companion to William Castle’s cheeseball frights than James Whale’s darkly comic classic frightener?