1959Dir. William Castle
Eccentric millionaire Fredrick Loren (Vincent Price) has invited five carefully selected strangers to the house on Haunted Hill for a ‘haunted house’ party, much to the chagrin of his wife Annabelle (Carol Ohmart). Loren promises to pay $10,000 to whoever stays in the creepy house for the whole night. With no electricity, no phones and no way of contacting the outside world, the guests are locked in the house at midnight. As the night progresses, it becomes very obvious that it will be a memorable one! Ghosts, ghouls and murder – oh my!
Darkness. A woman’s scream. Creepy moaning. Rattling chains and creaking doors. A disembodied head ponders the restless ‘ghosts’ on the prowl. Just another Saturday evening then – but it’s also the opening minutes of William Castle’s lovably daft House on Haunted Hill. A clunky, but thoroughly enjoyable ghost-train romp through every creaky old cliché in the book and straight into your heart. Constructed as the cinematic equivalent of a fairground haunted house, it has pop-up ghosts, disembodied heads, vats full of acid, dangling rickety skeletons and disappearing bodies. Indeed, director/producer/mastermind William Castle is perhaps more famed for the gimmicky promotional ploys he utilised to accompany and promote his films. He is the man responsible for dreaming up publicity stunts such as offering audiences ‘life insurance policies’ in case they died of fright during Macabre (1958); he also wired theatre seats with electric buzzers to mildly ‘shock’ audiences at appropriate moments throughout The Tingler (1959). The now legendary gimmick that accompanied House on Haunted Hill was known as ‘Emergo’ - a large fake skeleton attached to a wire that was winched across the movie theatre during key moments in the film, such as when a skeleton appears to rise from a vat of acid and menace Carol Ohmart. Wonderful!
The film begins with introductions all round (Castle is nothing if a splendid and considerate host). The guests arrive at the house in a spooky convoy of funereal cars – the sight of five hearses slowly winding up the Hollywood hills is a memorable one and sets the morbidly gimmicky tone immediately. Hunky test-pilot Lance (Richard Long), newspaper columnist Ruth (Julie Mitchum) and down on his luck Watson Pritchard (Elisha Cook), who is also the house's current owner after inheriting it. He drinks a lot and says stuff like ‘Only the ghosts in this house are glad we're here’ throughout proceedings. Psychiatrist Dr Trent (Alan Marshal) and Nora (Carolyn Craig), who works for one of the companies owned by Loren, complete the group of eclectic guests. The characters aren’t given much to do throughout the film, and the acting is melodramatic, however the sincerity and conviction of all involved keeps events ticking over nicely. A couple of well oiled ‘jump’ moments prove reliably effective (one in particular actually gets me every time) and some of the disembodied heads are pretty gruesome.
The spooky atmosphere is enhanced by suitably vintage organ music that instantly evokes the kind of creepy old horror films that House on Haunted Hill is one of. The rather striking looking house used for the exterior shots has a bizarre modernist feel – with architecture that falls somewhere between 50s kitsch and Aztec Temple, Brutalist and Art Deco. It's a lot, and doesn’t resemble the usual ‘traditional’ haunted house at all. Until we get inside. Things become much more familiar then, with spookily swinging chandeliers, secret passageways behind curtains/bookshelves and cob-webbed filled basements, which despite the creepy vibes that emanate from them, people still insist on exploring. Well, you would, wouldn't you?
The plot twists and turns, and then twists and turns again, ensuring events are never dull. Vincent Price is on top form as the decadently suave and sophisticated Fredrick Loren, throwing himself into the role with the all the melodramatic relish you’d expect; though he actually plays down his customary theatrics in House on Haunted Hill, ensuring Loren remains a dubious character we are never really sure about. Of course we ARE sure about him and by the final reel our instincts are proved right, as sure enough, he is revealed to be a seductively menacing and diabolically scheming individual who plotted the WHOLE thing! And he would’ve got away with it too, were it not for those pesky kids. He and the fabulously vindictive Ohmart (Spider Baby) exude catty hatefulness and are clearly having a ball in the scenes they share, taking campy verbal clumps out of each other with bitchy comments and barbed retorts.
Although he claimed to have been influenced by Alfred Hitchcock, Castle’s own directorial efforts were nowhere near as taut, effective or well constructed. His direction throughout House on Haunted Hill is quite unremarkable, though to be fair, he gets the job done in a rudimentary fashion. The film falls into a casual and repetitive stride almost immediately, with Carolyn Craig running into a ghoulish situation in a dark room, screaming, running back to join the others only to have them patronise and disbelieve her stories while Vincent Price and Carol Ohmart spit their vitriolic lines at each with malevolent relish. Lather, rinse, repeat.
House on Haunted Hill is steeped in an irresistible nostalgia and it consistently proves immensely entertaining and even more endearing every time I watch it – its perfect viewing for those dark, wet and windy winter evenings; and works equally well on a Sunday afternoon if that’s how you like to watch your old creaky horror films. A deliciously morbid, delightfully camp and full-blooded romp-fest that never fails to entertain every time it’s wheeled out of the crypt and plonked in the DVD player.