House On Haunted Hill

House on Haunted Hill (1959)

Runtime: 75 minutes

Directed by: William Castle

Starring: Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart, Richard Long, Carolyn Craig, Elisha Cook, Jr.

From: William Castle Productions

This is another revisit I was able to view another time via Turner Classic Movies. It's an entirely appropriate movie to talk about on this Halloween night, where I am happy to stay in rather than go out on what will be a crazy Friday night. Onto the Letterboxd review, and note that I'll return tomorrow night with my last horror movie for awhile, or at least that's the plan.

Of course this is a repeat viewing for me, having seen it a few times before in my life. TCM showed it last night so I figured it was the perfect time to see it and this was the perfect day to write my review of it.

I presume that most here have seen it already so I won't spend much time recapping the plot of how an eccentric millionaire (Vincent Price, unsurprisingly the highlight of the film) invites several strangers to spend a night in a haunted house for a large chunk of change, but there are spooky-looking things going on and the spirits seem to pick on a poor cute brunette girl...

The film is campy, sure, but it's just a lot of fun to watch, which is what you should expect from gimmick-loving low-budget purveyor William Castle; I wish the film industry of today had characters like Mr. Castle around. The movie's short and doesn't wear out its welcome, and you get both scares* and laughs. It's fine entertainment, especially around this time of the year.

Heaven knows it's miles better than the '99 remake which was stupid right away with that roller coaster opening then became awful as it went on, with Chris Kattan's character being incredibly loathsome and being the nadir of the movie... so just like every character Chris Kattan plays! No way would I ever watch it again, even for the purpose of ripping it apart on this site. Just stick with watching this instead.

* Although this time, I'd argue that the biggest scare was at the very beginning, where you see the disembodied head of Elisha Cook, Jr. flying right at you!