Movie Review: House on Haunted Hill (1959)
House on Haunted Hill is one of Vincent Price’s signature movies. I’ve always liked him as an actor. He’s played supporting roles in classic films such as 1944’s Laura and 1956’s The Ten Commandments, but his biggest impact was of course in the horror genre. His movies were generally pretty tongue-in-cheek, and could often be considered sort of horror comedies, and this movie’s really no exception. It certainly tries to be scary, and actually succeeds here and there, but the entire movie has a good sense of fun to it. After all, it is produced and directed by William Castle, who was well known for producing low budget horror films that he marketed with gimmicks in the theater.
It’s sort of light horror, nowhere near as disturbing as contemporary films such as Psycho or Peeping Tom, but entertaining nonetheless.
Vincent Price plays a character that nearly seems to have been created just for him: Frederick Loren, an eccentric millionaire, who has rented out a supposedly haunted house to throw a party for his fourth wife, Annabelle (Carol Ohmart). He invites five strangers and promises them that they’ll receive $10,000 if they spend the night.
Among the guests he invites is Watson Pritchard (Elisha Cook, Jr.), who believes in the stories of the house, considering his brother had died there. He’s actually the first character we meet, as he speaks directly to the camera in the opening scene.
The best moments of this movie come with the Lorens. It’s clear they hate each other, but they approach it in a playful way. It’s some good dark humor, and it features a fantastic line from Vincent Price: “Of all my wives, you’re the least agreeable.”
The movie has plenty of twists and turns, as we’re led to question whether the goings on are supernatural, or the machinations of one of the Lorens. There are walking skeletons, and moving ghosts.
It’s all great fun. It gives you no real reason to take it seriously, as it has a good sense of humor about itself, and yet it still provides a few decent scares. It’s honestly considerably more frightening than most horror movies from its time, which is pretty impressive, given the circumstances of its comedic delivery and low budget production.
Rating: 7/10
