House on Haunted Hill (1959)
Country: US
Technical: bw 75m
Director: William Castle
Cast: Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart, Richard Long, Elisha Cook
Synopsis:
A millionaire invites an assortment of people in need of money to his house to celebrate his wife's birthday. To each he promises $10,000 if they survive the night. But which are more dangerous, the spirits of the victims once murdered there, or the schemes of the married couple?
Review:
Risible horror, whose few genuine thrills suffer from the fairground charlatanism of its creator, who like Vincent Price, in this and so many films to come, does not know how to conceal the amused, self-aware glint in his eye. Thus on several occasions we are presented with the genuine possibility of supernatural intervention before having our assumptions disabused, but the detail does not add up. An entertaining ride, nonetheless, and just the film if you were thinking of installing an acid bath in your basement. (This was the Castle opus whose release trumpeted the gimmick of Emergo, namely a skeleton which trundled over the heads of audiences during the climax, that is if theatres bothered installing the device.)
Country: US
Technical: bw 75m
Director: William Castle
Cast: Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart, Richard Long, Elisha Cook
Synopsis:
A millionaire invites an assortment of people in need of money to his house to celebrate his wife's birthday. To each he promises $10,000 if they survive the night. But which are more dangerous, the spirits of the victims once murdered there, or the schemes of the married couple?
Review:
Risible horror, whose few genuine thrills suffer from the fairground charlatanism of its creator, who like Vincent Price, in this and so many films to come, does not know how to conceal the amused, self-aware glint in his eye. Thus on several occasions we are presented with the genuine possibility of supernatural intervention before having our assumptions disabused, but the detail does not add up. An entertaining ride, nonetheless, and just the film if you were thinking of installing an acid bath in your basement. (This was the Castle opus whose release trumpeted the gimmick of Emergo, namely a skeleton which trundled over the heads of audiences during the climax, that is if theatres bothered installing the device.)
Country: US
Technical: bw 75m
Director: William Castle
Cast: Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart, Richard Long, Elisha Cook
Synopsis:
A millionaire invites an assortment of people in need of money to his house to celebrate his wife's birthday. To each he promises $10,000 if they survive the night. But which are more dangerous, the spirits of the victims once murdered there, or the schemes of the married couple?
Review:
Risible horror, whose few genuine thrills suffer from the fairground charlatanism of its creator, who like Vincent Price, in this and so many films to come, does not know how to conceal the amused, self-aware glint in his eye. Thus on several occasions we are presented with the genuine possibility of supernatural intervention before having our assumptions disabused, but the detail does not add up. An entertaining ride, nonetheless, and just the film if you were thinking of installing an acid bath in your basement. (This was the Castle opus whose release trumpeted the gimmick of Emergo, namely a skeleton which trundled over the heads of audiences during the climax, that is if theatres bothered installing the device.)