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: 1932

The horror… the horror: James Whale creates a fantastic blueprint for all future haunted house movies. Though it crackles with his offbeat humor, it is more nuanced than in his overpraised Bride of Frankenstein. Ernest Thesiger is more shrewd here as Horace Femm, the browbeaten brother of the eccentric Femm family, and Eva Moore is wonderfully odious as pious sister Rebecca Femm. The dinner scene is priceless, as Horace offers up potatoes like loaves and fishes, and the guests attempt to fathom their hosts’ bizarre behavior. Melvyn Douglas brings his particular air of imperturbability to the proceedings, while Gloria Stuart is appropriately terrified as his friend’s wife. And let’s please not leave out Boris Karloff as the intimidating mute butler, Morgan.

Halloween haunt: This one literally speaks for itself. It’s an old… dark… house. Set alone in the English countryside, it is under constant siege from wind and thunder. Sparsely decorated, illuminated only by candle-light that casts uneasy shadows on the bare walls, and threatening unseen horrors from locked doors and darkened corridors.

Tastiest treat: Twisted and malevolent brother, Saul, who has been locked away and whispered of for most of the film, makes his foreboding entrance with the chilling appearance of a single hand on the staircase bannister.

Check the candy for: Though credited as John Dudgeon, Sir Roderick Femm was actually played by Elspeth Dudgeon, a woman. Also check out gorgeous Gloria Stuart, who would become famous to American audiences a lifetime later as the elderly Rose in James Cameron’s weepy Titanic.

Devilish discourse: “Have a po-ta-to.”

Goes great with: House on Haunted Hill (1959). Who better than Vincent Price to out-ham Ernest Thesiger as the host of a twisted little game in which he invites several strangers to survive a single night in his creepy home in exchange for a $10,000 bounty.