'Rebecca' remains the perfect romantic thriller for grownups who don't need gore

Here's something to keep in mind as we approach the manufactured fright extravaganza of Halloween: Not all ghosts are actually ghosts. Sometimes, as in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca, the haunting is done by memories, a guilty conscience and a doggedly loyal servant.

New to the Criterion Collection, Rebecca remains the champion of all romantic thrillers. Joan Fontaine is the young innocent swept off her feet by the aristocratic widower Maxim de Winter (the great Laurence Olivier). He marries her and whisks her away to his family estate, where she finds she has some big shoes to fill. Nobody, it seems, ventures to the mansion's west wing. Then there's Mrs. Danvers (a chilling Judith Anderson), the first wife's faithful, infatuated helper, who sees no need for a second Mrs. De Winter.

Based on the novel by Daphne Du Maurier, who also wrote the story on which Hitchcock based The Birds, Rebecca is a perfect thriller for grownups who don't need gore.