On Tuesday, Oct. 21, the Chestnut Hill Film Group will be celebrating Halloween with a movie by classic horror director James Whale (“Frankenstein,” “Bride of Frankenstein,” “The Invisible Man”). “The Old Dark House” (1932) is a strange and delightful entry in the “creepy house” genre that would later inspire everything from “The Addams Family” and “The Munsters” to “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Based on J.B. Priestley’s novel “Benighted,” Whale took a story of postwar disillusionment and reshaped it into something both Gothic and screwball. The result is a film that blends horror, social satire, and black comedy that feels decades ahead of its time.

The setup is classic horror: a rain-soaked night and a handful of stranded travelers seeking shelter in a remote house in the Welsh countryside. The guests include a married couple, Philip and Margaret Waverton (Raymond Massey and Gloria Stuart), their jaded friend Penderel (Melvyn Douglas), and later, another pair of travelers bedraggled from the storm, William Porterhouse (Charles Laughton) and Gladys (Lilian Bond). Inside the ancient, crumbling mansion they are greeted by the Femm family, a gallery of unforgettable oddballs including the puritanical Rebecca (Eva Moore), her nervous and fastidious brother Horace (Ernest Thesiger), and their hulking mute butler, Morgan (Boris Karloff) fresh from “Frankenstein.”

“The Old Dark House” is a “Pre-Code” film, made before Hollywood’s censorship rules were enforced in 1934, and Whale makes the most of it. There is licentiousness to the storm-tossed house itself. Margaret Waverton, shivering in her wet gown, endures the perversely charged scolding of Rebecca Femm and the leering gaze of Morgan. People drink, mutter, get up and shout, and constantly open doors and windows to let the storm in. There’s a sense that everyone here is on the edge of losing control.

That emotional turbulence was the subject of Priestley’s novel “Benighted” and audiences in 1932 would recognize the deeper trauma of World War I. The travelers represent a generation adrift, unable to reconcile what they experienced during the war with the polite society they returned to. The Femms, by contrast, are a strange and broken family, seemingly living outside of time and in a liminal space. Whale proposes that the “normal” guests and the monstrous hosts need one another to bring their buried damage to light. Inside the benighted house, the repressed speak, and what’s been locked away rattles its chains.

Modern critics often read “The Old Dark House” as a queer parable, and it certainly works that way — a house full of secrets, a family defined by repression, and outsiders forced to navigate coded spaces. Thesiger’s Horace is unmistakably queer-coded. His delicate gestures and dry wit could have turned him into caricature, but Whale makes him relatable and even endearing.

“The Old Dark House,” like “Frankenstein” and “Bride of Frankenstein,” reflects Whale’s compassion for society’s “monsters.” His films subvert the usual horror dynamic. The so-called freaks are often the most human characters. The Femm household, for all its madness, feels more honest about human frailty.

“The Old Dark House” was considered a “lost” film until 1968 when a printable negative was found in Universal’s vault. Since then, it has been restored and reappraised as one of Whale’s finest works. Its influence can be found in stories where misfits gather in a storm and, for one long night, are forced to deal with the shadows within. The film’s blend of horror, camp, and sexual tension would also become a blueprint for “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” (1975), whose creators openly cited Whale as an influence. Both films share the same sense of gleeful chaos.

Ninety years later, “The Old Dark House” still feels modern. Its tone shifts from menace to absurdity, its sympathies lie with the outcasts, and its humor slices through hypocrisy like lightning. Made in the brief, unruly window before Hollywood’s Production Code began enforcing moral restrictions, Whale’s film uses the freedom of the Pre-Code era to create a moody, mischievous, and unsettling vision of Gothic.

“The Old Dark House” screens at Woodmere on Thursday, Oct. 21, at 7 p.m. as part of the Chestnut Hill Film Group’s Tuesday Night at the Movies series. Light refreshments will be served prior to the screening. Admission is free, but donations at the door are greatly appreciated. Woodmere is located at 9201 Germantown Ave., Chestnut Hill.

Heather Sloan Gray is president of the Chestnut Hill Film Group and a staff writer at MovieJawn.