The best Mildred Dunnock’s mystery movies

Trouble erupts in a small, quiet New England town when a man's body is found in the woods. The problem is that almost everyone in town thinks that they had something to do with his death.

As Aunt Alice, Ruth Gordon applies for the job of housekeeper in the Tucson, Arizona home of widow Claire Marrable in order to find out what happened to a missing widowed friend, Edna Tilsney. The crazed Page, left only a stamp album by her husband, takes money from her housekeepers, kills them, and buries the bodies in her garden. Alice is a widow too. So is neighbor Harriet Vaughn. Lots of widows here.

A demented killer stalks the streets, preying on young, handicapped women. Where will he strike next? Who will be the next victim? The answers might surprise you…because there's always another twist to The Spiral Staircase. Jacqueline Bisset and Christopher Plummer headline this fear-choked modernization of the famed 1946 Gothic shocker. Bisset is Helen, a mute woman who stops overnight at her family’s remote country mansion where Helen’s Uncle Sherman (Plummer) runs a respected psychological institute. And there, an unseen eye stares out at Helen from the shadows. When a storm plunges the house into darkness, the terror erupts and Helen’s horror has only just begun. So have the convoluted steps leading to the suspense-filled end of The Spiral Staircase.