Variety provided a favorable review, noting that The Dark at the Top of the Stairs was "well cast and persuasively acted." However, Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called it a "flawed adaptation of the original stage play." The Film Bulletin described the film a "rather absorbing drama, with goodly shares of humor, warmth, and tragedy," though Preston's performance needed more "humility and tenderness" and Mann's direction, though professional, focused on "certain scenes singularly, rather than integrating them into the whole." Motion Picture Daily provided another positive review while criticizing Mann's direction, writing that he "failed to draw out some of the most vital scenes all the urgency and pathos that Inge had wrote into them."
