"WARNING. Don't attend if you can't stand thrills" the advertisement states.
The trio of cinematic terror consisted of:
1. Dead Men Walk, (1943), a 64-minute flick that IMDb.com describes thusly: "The twin of a kindly small-town physician returns from the grave for vengeance against his brother, who secretly killed him because the twin served Satan." It has a 4.8/10 rating. It was shot in six days and was one of the final movie appearances for Dwight Frye (1899-1943), who gave memorable performances in the 1931 classics Dracula and Frankenstein.
2. Terror House (aka The Night Has Eyes and Moonlight Madness), (1942). This 79-minute film from the UK has a respectable rating of 6.2 on IMDb.com. It's a thriller that takes place in an Old Dark House1 amid the Yorkshire moors and stars James Mason a young man who may or may not be the villain. I'm going to track this one down, and I love what one reviewer wrote about it on IMDb.com in 2010:
"Of all the movies I love, none has had a wider ranging impact than this one. I saw it on late night TV when I was 9, Halloween night, at a sleepover where everyone else was sleeping. I had nothing to do and couldn't figure out how to change the channel on the TV, so I was sitting there grumpily watching something random when this... strange movie came on. It was in black and white, but the people in it were beautiful, as were the clothes, the sets, everything. I was transfixed. ... Thank you to the people who made this film with love. They'll never know what it's meant to me."
3. Nightmare, 1942. I don't know that this one truly falls into the category of horror. But it's a thriller. The IMDb.com summary: "An ex-gambler helps a beautiful widow, and becomes involved with a murder, secret agents, and saboteurs." It has a 6.3 rating and features the wonderfully named Elspeth Dudgeon, who is so memorable in 1932's The Old Dark House.
Also on the bill is the screwball comedy The Palm Beach Story, a Preston Sturges film that's well-regarded but certainly doesn't fit thematically with everything else.
The films were shown at Greeley's Park Theatre, which was in existence from 1922 to 1952, according to Cinema Treasures. Admission would have been about 20 cents, a darn good deal. That's about $3.60 today. Popcorn not included, though.
Spooky footnote
1. Some links for more about Old Dark House type movies:
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