14 Horror Noirs To Watch If You Loved Angel Heart

George Harvey Bone (Laird Cregar) is teetering on the edge of greatness. His life's work — an intense, piano-driven concerto — is nearly finished and his peers are adamant that international fame is just around the corner. But lately, George has been experiencing blackouts: gaps in his memory seemingly brought upon by high stress and disagreeable sounds. 

More troubling still: George's latest bout of amnesia has coincided with a grisly stabbing. Was he responsible? Could his subconscious self really have done something that senseless and violent? As the concerto premiere looms, Geroge finds himself in the clutches of an exploitative songstress ... and the suspicious tragedies continue to pile up.

There's a reason "Hangover Square" feels especially "Hitchcock-y." For starters, Both Cregar and director John Brahm's previous project was "The Lodger," a remake of Hitchock's 1927 film of the same name. Furthermore, its suspenseful soundtrack is indeed the work of "Psycho" composer Bernard Hermann. 

But more to the point, "Hangover Square" is an adaptation of a play by Patrick Hamilton, the same man who wrote both "Rope" (adapted by Hitchcock in 1948) and "Gas Light," a formative psychological thriller which was adapted for the big screen in both 1940 and 1944).

With long shadows, expressionistic lighting, and a believably cruel femme fatale in Linda Darnell's Netta, the noir genealogy of "Hangover Square" is front and center. Its identity as a horror film is a little sneakier, but the "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" slasher angle is suitably terrifying twist that culminates in a fiery crescendo that must be seen to be believed.