The Terror
Warner Bros.' first all-talking horror feature sent voices through Vitaphone discs; the soundtrack survives, but the images it was meant to haunt are gone.
Quick facts
- Existence state
- Officially Gone
- Peak stage
- general availability
- Research confidence
- high
- Last verified
What it was
A formally released early sound horror feature directed by Roy Del Ruth from Edgar Wallace's play.
Guests in an old English manor were menaced by a mysterious killer in both talking and silent release versions.
Existence timeline
Warner Bros. prepares the feature for mixed theatre technology.
Audiences hear an early all-dialogue horror film.
A second edition reaches unequipped cinemas.
Both visual versions leave known circulation.
Preservation catalogues report no surviving print.
UCLA preserves audio that no complete film can accompany.
Why it ended
Neither picture version is known to survive, although the separate sound-on-disc recordings remain preserved.
Last confirmed trace
UCLA holds the complete soundtrack discs, while advertisements, reviews and production records document the missing visuals.
What it left behind
The split survival of sound without image captures the technical vulnerability of cinema's transition to talking pictures.
How we classified it
The archive unit reached normal public release or operation and is no longer obtainable in its original public form.
Verified normal public availability maps to 100 under Arrival Score V1.
Sources & verification
Last reviewed 2026-08-01. Sources are linked so readers can inspect the evidence directly.