The Black Abbot

CinemaSerfJul 2023

2.5

John Stuart doesn't really have much to do in this rather routine, gently comedic, haunted house mystery. His "Brooks" character finds himself trying to identify a phantom that inhabits an old monastery and who has an habit of terrifying - or worse - the other occupants. Those range from the upper class nitwits to the loved-up servants - and he has to get a move on before there is no-one left to help discover who's up to all of this mischief and why? It's all a bit too verbal, and at just under the hour, there is still quite a fair degree of padding too. It's still watchable enough if you like an early example of a British-made thriller that uses the gloominess of the scenario and a minimum of wattage to help present the thinnest of stories in quite an eerie style.