| House on Haunted Hill | |
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Original film poster by Reynold Brown |
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| Directed by | William Castle |
| Produced by | William Castle Robb White |
| Written by | Robb White |
| Starring | Vincent Price Carolyn Craig Elisha Cook Carol Ohmart Alan Marshal Julie Mitchum |
| Music by | Richard Kayne Richard Loring Von Dexter |
| Cinematography | Carl E. Guthrie |
| Editing by | Roy V. Livingston |
| Distributed by | Allied Artists |
| Release date(s) | February 17, 1959 |
| Running time | 75 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $200,000 (estimated) |
House on Haunted Hill is a 1959 American B movie horror film from Allied Artists.[1][2] It was directed by William Castle, written by Robb White, and starring Vincent Price as eccentric millionaire Fredrick Loren. He and his fourth wife, Annabelle, have invited five people to the house for a "Haunted House" party. Whoever stays in the house for one night will earn $10,000 each. As the night progresses, all the guests are trapped inside the house with ghosts, murderers, and other terrors.
Exterior shots of the house were filmed at the historic Ennis House in Los Feliz, California.
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House on Haunted Hill is the tale of five people invited to stay the night in a haunted house by an eccentric millionaire, Fredrick Loren (Vincent Price), who is throwing the "party" for his fourth wife, Annabelle (Carol Ohmart), with the stipulation that the power will be out and all doors will be locked at midnight, allowing no accessible escape. Anyone who stays in the house for the entire night, given that they are still alive, will each receive $10,000.
The five guests all arrive in separate funeral cars with a hearse leading, which he explains may be empty now, but they may be in need of it later. He explains the rules of the party and gives each of the guests a .45 caliber pistol for protection. Loren's wife tries to warn the guests that her husband is psychotic, causing them to be very suspicious of him, especially Nora Manning (Carolyn Craig), who becomes convinced that he's trying to kill her when she keeps seeing mysterious ghouls, including the ghost of Annabelle, who had hanged herself after being forced to attend the party.
Almost as frightened as Nora is Watson Pritchard (Elisha Cook), the house's owner and another of the party's guests. He is fully convinced that the house is genuinely haunted by the ghosts of those killed there in the past, and that those ghosts have the power to "come for" and kill anyone in the house that they wish.
Eventually it is revealed that Annabelle faked her death in league with one of the guests, Dr. Trent (Alan Marshal). The two have been attempting to frighten Nora so badly that she will be spooked into shooting Frederick. Indeed, after being driven into a fit of hysteria by the repeated frights she has experienced during the evening, Nora does fire upon Frederick, assuming he is going to kill her. After she flees the room, Dr. Trent slips in and tries to get rid of Frederick's body by pushing it into a vat of acid, but the lights go out, and when they come back on, both of the men are gone.
After hearing the sound of the gunshot, Annabelle enters to confirm that her plan to kill her husband has come to fruition. Suddenly, a skeleton emerges from the acid accompanied by Frederick's voice. The spectre approaches Annabelle as she recoils in terror. In this panic, the screaming Annabelle accidentally backs into the acid herself. The real Frederick walks out of the shadows, holding the contraption that he was using to control the skeleton. In his triumph, he watches Annabelle disintegrate.
Nora tells the other guests that she's shot Loren in the wine cellar, and they all rush down there. When they arrive, they see that he's actually alive, and he tells Nora that the gun she had fired at him had been loaded only with blanks. He then explains to guests that his wife and Dr. Trent had been trying to kill him and that they each have met their end in the vat of acid. He says solemnly that he is "ready for justice to decide" his guilt or innocence.
Just when everyone thinks the trauma is finally over Watson Pritchard looks into the acid and asserts that Annabelle and Dr. Trent have now joined the ranks of house's ghosts. Then, with a terrified expression on his face, he announces that the ghosts are now coming for him. Breaking the fourth wall, he looks at the camera and adds, "and then they'll come for you."
The theatrical trailer promoted the film as The House on Haunted Hill, although all advertising material, and the title on the film itself were simply titled House on Haunted Hill. The film is best known for a famous promotional gimmick used in the film's original theatrical release called "Emergo": William Castle placed an elaborate pulley system in some theaters showing the film which allowed a plastic skeleton to be flown over the audience at the appropriate time.[3][4] In August and September 2010, the Film Forum in New York City had a revival of the film (along with several other Castle pictures) that included the original gimmicks. This was the first time since the late 1980s Film Forum had done this.
Thanks to Castle's gimmickry, the film was a huge success. Alfred Hitchcock took notice of the low-budget film's performance at the box office, and set out to make his own low-budget horror film, which became the critically acclaimed hit Psycho (1960). Castle was himself a Hitchcock fan, and would try to imitate Hitchcock's work in later films such as Homicidal (1961).
House on Haunted Hill was originally released by Allied Artists. The film has since become public domain, and is available in a number of issues. Two major studios have released the film in remastered versions. Warner Home Video released the film on DVD as a tie-in to the release of the 1999 remake. In 2005, the film was colorized by Legend Films. The color version was released on DVD the same year by 20th Century Fox. Extras prepared by Legend Films for the Fox DVD release included an audio commentary track by comedian Michael J. Nelson of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame, two versions of the trailer, and a slideshow of images from the film's original press book.
Johnny Legend released a 50th Anniversary DVD containing a whole slew of extras such as both original theatrical trailer and TV spots plus several William Castle and Vincent Price theatrical trailers, a Carol Ohmart profile and "Golden age" TV shows starring Vincent Price. A DivX file of the colorized version with the commentary embedded is available as part of Nelson's RiffTrax On Demand service.[5] In 2009, a newly-recorded commentary by Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett was released by RiffTrax.[6] The RiffTrax team performed a Live RiffTrax of The House on Haunted Hill on 10/28/10.
On September 28, 2011, the estate of William Castle released an annotated screenplay from "House on Haunted Hill" which is a copy of the shooting script along with Castle's "margin notes" and the leather-bound style in which Castle used for his shooting script. This edition includes introductions from Joe Dante and Castle's daughter Terry. It also features its own version of "Emerg-o" in which the skeleton appears to readers via a "flip page" method.
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