Notes on…

Gaslight(1944)

Dir. Directed by George Cukor


Though it was certainly the ne plus ultra of big-screen chillers in its day, Gaslight is now just another one of the myriad overly-dignified and genteel Hollywood melodramas that stole spots on the AFI’s list of 100 most thrilling films from the far more illicit and gleeful likes of Assault on Precinct 13 and The Fury. It may sound flippant to compare these diverse films, but for all the passion Cukor and Bergman attempt to stuff into the creaky domestic premise, Gaslight ultimately adds up to very little in the psychological mind-fuck department, and now pales in comparison to the tightly-wound ferocity of John Carpenter and Brian De Palma.

Eric Henderson

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A newlywed fears she's going mad when strange things start happening at the family mansion.