[1][2] The movie would be the first in a series of low-budget suspense dramas made by Warner Bros in the vein of the successful William Castle films,[3] and was followed by My Blood Runs Cold and Brainstorm, both also released in 1965 with Conrad as director.

Twenty years later he dies, and his will requires his daughter Cassie (the image of her mother) to spend seven nights in his apparently haunted mansion in order to inherit his estate.

As the days pass, the two encounter a number of spooky happenings, leading to a climax in which the very-much-alive Duquesne attempts a recreation of his guillotine trick, this time with his daughter as an unwilling assistant.

Two on a Guillotine was one of a series of movies financed by Warner Bros which were made by directors who had previously worked primarily in television, such as Conrad, Lamont Johnson and Jack Smight.

"[9] In his review in The New York Times, Howard Thompson called the film "a dull, silly, tedious clinker" and "an old-fashioned, haunted-house spooker.