This remake of the 1939 Blind Alley is one of Hollywood's more interesting ventures into Freudian psychology--typically simplified, but visually amplified in a dark suspense drama directed by Rudolph Maté, the celebrated cinematographer (The Passion of Joan of Arc, Vampyr, etc.). William Holden is well cast against type as a maniacal killer who has escaped from jail and now holds a family and their friends hostage at their lakeside cabin. Only one among them, a psychiatrist (Lee J. Cobb), remains unaffected by the terror inflicted by the killer and his moll (Nina Foch): seeing in him a chance to explore his theory that criminals might be rehabilitated through psychiatric treatment, he sets out at considerable risk to unravel the nightmare of the killer's life as set out in some memorable dream sequences.