ObscureHollywood.net’s review published on Letterboxd:
During a performance of a play, The Snare, the leading man is murdered on stage. As the police investigate, the body is stolen. Clues are few, and nobody is arrested. The owners of the theater close and lock the doors.
Seven years later, a new producer (Montague Love) announces that he is opening the theater, bringing back the original cast and crew, and staging The Snare. The principals gather in the dark and dusty theater and start to rehearse the play. Everybody is on edge as creepy events, such as the apparent appearance of the dead actor’s ghost, startle the troupe.
The producer, actually a police officer, is determined to continue the rehearsals (and his investigation) until the mystery is solved.
Expressionist director Paul Leni, an emigre from Germany, had had a hit with the old dark house mystery The Cat and the Canary (1927), and The Last Warning was a follow-up film in a similarly creepy vein. Laura LaPlant, who had starred in The Cat and the Canary, returned to star in The Last Warning.
Seen at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival 2016.