House on Haunted Hill
It was a strange invitation from a man known to be an eccentric though personally unknown to each of his guests, millionaire Frederick Loren hosting an overnight party where those who stay the whole night will each be given $10,000, those invited all in need of the money for various reasons, nervous Watson Pritchard, owner of the house who believes it is haunted, test pilot Lance Schroeder, columnist Ruth Bridges, Doctor David Trent, a psychiatrist with an interest in hysteria, and Nora Manning, a typist at one of Loren’s many companies.
Arriving as though they were part of a funeral cortege while their host bickers upstairs with his fourth wife Annabelle, sixteen years his junior, the first having vanished mysteriously and the second and third both having died young, the animosity fills the air as do the screams, the house explored by flickering gaslight with Nora in particular deeply effected by what may be cruel coincidences but what might be a targeted assault on the woman considered the most vulnerable among those gathered.
Directed by William Castle, known for his theatrical showmanship, The Tingler, 13 Ghosts and Homicidal having all had gimmicks from vibrating motors under seats intended to simulate electric shocks, colour filter spectacles used to reveal apparitions and a scheduled “fright break” allowing members of the audience to leave if they were too frightened to go on, with 1959’s House on Haunted Hill it was a skeleton flown on wires through the auditorium as it emerged from the shadows depicted on screen.
Starring the great Vincent Price as Loren, already embracing his role as a horror icon following House of Wax and The Fly, his wife Annabelle is played with venom by Spider Baby’s Carol Ohmart while as Pritchard prolific film noir veteran Elisha Cook Jr was only beginning his entry into the genre, later memorably seen in Rosemary’s Baby, The Night Stalker and Salem’s Lot, while the exterior location of the Ennis House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright has since become an influential star in its own right.
Playing as an inversion of the standard “country house mystery,” with the cash prize guaranteed to the survivors rather than competed for and weapons freely available, coffin-shaped gift boxes containing pistols given to all the guests as the drinks are served, only motives are in short supply with all attending apparently strangers to each other and their host, though suspicion runs to a surfeit, Loren’s defence when it is suggested he murdered a previous wife only that if he had “he wouldn’t have done it that way.”
Robb White’s script film built around the gimmicks which power the supposedly haunted house, it might have been better without the embellishments, the uneasy ensemble at their best when challenging and interrogating each other and their situation rather than facing down cheap tricks, though as the guest with the greatest screentime Carolyn Craig is noticeably short-changed, Nora given little to do other than run and scream, but while House on Haunted Hill is frustratingly uneven it still deserves recognition for the achievement of its modest budget.
House on Haunted Hill is available on Shudder now
