Horrorfest 2014: House on Haunted Hill

Here's Vincent Price's second flick this Horrorfest, HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL, produced and directed by William Castle, that showman of the 50s and 60s who produced a slew of gimmicky horror flicks that in an attempt to turn theater going into an immersive experience.

This is a Horrorfest flick that falls under the category of "I've kinda-sorta-maybe seen it before?" So, in other words, I don't know if I've seen parts of it or the whole thing or what, but I figure if I can't remember, it's fair game.

The story is well known – a wealthy couple (Vincent Price and Carol Ohmart) rent a haunted house and invite a group of strangers over for an all night party. Everyone's promised some money if they can make it through the whole night.

The strangers include the guy who owns the house (Elisha Cook, Jr.). He's convinced it's really haunted and knows all about the various ghosts inhabiting the house and its history of murders. Then there's Richard Long as a strapping pilot, Alan Marshall as a psychiatrist, Carolyn Craig as a young employee of Price's and Julie Mitchum as a newspaper columnist.

It's a good cast and, aside from Vincent Price (of course) the best among them is Elisha Cook, Jr. He's great as the alcoholic next of kin to the murderous clan that begat his house. As the film progresses he gets more and more drunk, and more and more scared, moving from just a little wary of the proceedings to an outright prophet of doom. Elisha Cook, Jr. is the kind of actor who appears in all kinds of stuff, so I've seen him in everything from film noir (THE MALTESE FALCON) to westerns (SHANE) and he's great in everything. It's nice to see him nail the horror genre, too.

Vincent Price is great as always and one neat trick of the otherwise pretty bland script has him wavering between hero, villain and victim. Up until the end, we're never quite sure what to make of him. His main role is to work as a guide through the haunted house and the movie itself. In an early scene he even looks directly at the audience as if to say, "Hey, we're in this together, let's have a good time." In this way he's kind of like William Castle's surrogate.

Original screenings of this film featured a prop skeleton that would swoop over audiences during the climactic final showdown. Even though you can't enjoy that at home, it is easy to see the various ways in which Castle attempted to work the entire theater setting into his film. More so than other films, this one's shot with the knowledge that it's playing to an audience in a theater, and the sound design is ahead of its time.

Unfortunately, most of the middle part of the movie is a bore. Aside from a few good jump scares to break up the monotony the majority of the film is made up of the various characters bickering and wandering around the house. So, while HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL has a lot going for it, it's still a step below the real classics.