House on Haunted Hill (1959)
Posted on July 30, 2005
Filed Under Black and white, Creepy stuff
Vincent Price is one of those actors who can raise the level of a film just by being in it, with his finely judged moustache, velvety voice and willingness to chew on any scenery that shares his shot. William Castle’s great little movie gives him a good meal; the interiors are magnificently opulent, and the script sits on just the right side of being camp to allow Price to give one of his trademark smooth-but-sinister performances. He plays an eccentric millionaire who pays a group of strangers $10,000 each to come and spend a night in his ‘haunted’ house. Cue all sorts of shocks and scares as the night progresses, but is the house really haunted, is Price up or something or is someone else on the prowl?
This movie is terrific fun, mainly by virtue of Price’s delicious performance, but it’s far from being just a star vehicle; all the actors give it their best shot, especially Carol Ohmart as Price’s scheming wife, whose scenes with the man himself really crackle. The script is taut and suspenseful, with a number of intriguing red herrings thrown in before the truth is finally revealed. But Price is undoubtedly one of the two star attractions here; whether he’s shooting daggers at his wife or inserting… ridiculous… pauses in the middle of sentences, his sheer magnetism and ability to bring out both the fun and the menace from any line kept us glued to the screen.
The other highlight, though, is the appearance of the skeleton at the end. Apparently, Castle made the film in “Emergo”, meaning that at the appropriate moment a skeleton on a string was dangled into the audience. Frankly, I can’t think of anything more likely to shatter the mood, but the sight of a science-lab skeleton rising out of an acid bath to accuse the murderer had my jaw on the floor. This moment alone is worth the price of the DVD, but in many ways it sums up this film as a whole pretty accurately - hilariously preposterous, quite exciting, and with enough of a wink to the audience to get away with it (and Vincent’s there laughing afterwards, to tell you it was all a ruse). Everyone in House on Haunted Hill clearly had great fun making it, just as I did watching it.
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Speaking of the “House on Haunted Hill”, the house that stood in for exterior shots of Price’s mansion, the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Ennis Brown House, was recently named one of the 11 Most Endangered d Historic Places by the National Trust, due to earthquake and previous owner damage. It’d be a shame to see such a cool and historically significant building fall into more ruin than it’s already in.