House on Haunted Hill (1959)
An eccentric millionaire offers five strangers ten thousand dollars each to survive a night locked inside a house where seven people have been murdered. His wife wants him dead, he seems to want the same for her, and the caretakers swear the place does the killing itself. Castle stages it as a carnival funhouse with a body count.
In 1959 a plastic skeleton flew over the audience on a wire. Watching at home you supply your own — the film still delivers Price at his most gleeful.
Background
William Castle was a showman as much as a director, and for this film he invented Emergo: in some cinemas a plastic skeleton was pulled on a wire over the audience during the climax. Vincent Price plays Frederick Loren, the millionaire who invites guests to a party in a house he says is haunted, and Elisha Cook Jr. is the nervous caretaker. Robb White wrote the screenplay. The house used for the exterior is Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House in Los Angeles.
What to watch for
The film is a haunted-house story that does not take itself seriously, and Price’s arch delivery sets the tone. Watch for the marriage between Price and Carol Ohmart, whose exchanges of insults are the funniest part, and for the acid vat in the basement. Its copyright was not renewed, so it is in the public domain. Castle later produced Rosemary’s Baby, and the way he marketed his films with gimmicks helped to shape how horror was sold. A remake followed in 1999, but the original is more fun.
