A corpse narrates this 1940s horror film

Scared to Death was made in 1946 by Christy Cabanne, a veteran director whose career reached back to the silent era, and it is a horror film narrated by a dead woman lying on a morgue slab. TCM compares its structure to Sunset Blvd. in 1950, another film told by someone who is already dead. It was also shot in color, unlike most horror films of its decade.

The story starts at the end. Laura Van Ee is in a loveless marriage to Ward. Threatening letters from Europe convince her that Ward and his father, a psychiatrist, are trying to drive her mad. Then Leonide, a stage magician and the doctor's cousin, arrives with a deaf companion named Indigo, and a decapitated head made to look like Laura is delivered with a warning about a man in a green mask.

How does a film told by a corpse work?

It opens in a morgue, where two autopsy surgeons examine a woman's body. Laura's voice then takes over and narrates the events that led there. The actress Molly Lamont plays her and speaks the voice-over, according to the AFI Catalog, the American Film Institute's record of US films. The narration returns between scenes, so the audience knows from the first minute that she does not survive and watches for how.

The film critic Derek Winnert calls it "possibly the first film to be narrated by a corpse." The word "possibly" is his, and no source here settles it. What is documented is the device itself, and that it was in use years before Sunset Blvd.

Why was a small horror film shot in color?

TCM says Cabanne filmed it in color, unlike most horror films of the 1930s and 1940s. The process was Cinecolor, which records color on two film strips run together through the camera, so it captures only two colors. Its main customers were small studios and distributors such as Monogram, Producers Releasing Corporation and Screen Guild Productions. Screen Guild distributed this film.

Cinecolor handled greens badly, which matters here because the film turns on a green mask. A reviewer at Frank's Movie Log notes that on screen the mask looks blue.

The color is also the reason for the film's place in the career of Bela Lugosi, the actor who had played Dracula on Broadway. By then he was working mostly in mad-scientist roles at Monogram, according to Film Threat. He plays Professor Leonide, and TCM calls this his only appearance in color. Film Threat and Frank's Movie Log note that he had a small part in the 1930 Technicolor film Viennese Nights, so it is his only starring role in color.

What happened between filming and release?

Production began in late March 1946 under the working title Accent on Horror and was finished in April 1946. Lionel Atwill, a British-born horror actor, was cast as Dr. Joseph Van Ee but fell ill before filming, and George Zucco, another British-born horror actor, replaced him. Zucco had appeared in horror films such as The Mummy's Hand.

Screen Guild released the film in 1947, months after shooting ended. Sources split on the date, with AFI giving May and Winnert giving February. Variety judged it a dull, poorly put together melodrama, and Film Threat adds that the color did not bring audiences in. A film that was held back, then dismissed, is the reason it is worth a second look now.

Where it sits on Relay

Relay streams 130 horror films from 1920 to 1960 in the US, and this is the one with a dead narrator, a cheap color process and a leading man whose career was in decline. It runs 68 minutes.

The film suits viewers who like old horror with a strange structure, anyone curious how color looked on a small budget in the 1940s, and people who want a short mystery that tells its ending first.

Horror