What's it about? An architect arrives at a country house party and proceeds to reveal to the assembled guests that he's seen them all in his dreams and predicts impossible to know events. The guests, amused by his claims of precognition, then entertain one another with tales of the supernatural of their own, including that of a ghostly driver and a ventriloquist driven mad when his doll appears to take on a life of its own. What makes it groundbreaking? Dead of Night is perhaps the first true horror anthology movie of all time so in this sense alone can be seen as triggering a new subgenre of horror which has persisted - for better or worse - in the many decades since its release. It's also one of the best of all time, with each segment a solid exercise in short form filmmaking of a consistently high quality. That it was produced by Ealing Studios, who would later forge a reputation as masters of comedy, makes this achievement all the more notable.
