HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1959) Blu-ray Review

House on Haunted Hill (1959) d. William Castle (USA) (75 min)

This classic fright-fest frivolity from producer/director Castle stars Vincent Price as eccentric millionaire Frederick Loren, offering $10,000 to five diverse guests if they can spend the entire night in the titular haunted house; thrills and chills ensue.

Castle has never been more adept at creating straight-faced spooky atmosphere, and Robb White’s snaky screenplay provides characters and mystery adequate to hold our attention through the film’s zippy running time. Doors creak open and slam shut, decapitated heads appear and disappear, and vats of acid bubble deliciously in the cellar, with a wonderfully cheesy skeleton topping off the delightful buffet.

The mental (and sometimes physical) tug-of-war between Loren and willful wife Annabelle (Carol Ohmart) provides an additional layer of tension to the proceedings. Their beleaguered guests include Richard Long’s dashing jet pilot and cute Carolyn Craig (a great screamer, though not much more should be asked of her). Elisha Cook, Jr. is top-drawer as a frightened mouse of a man, alternating between shots of whiskey to ease his frazzled nerves and doom-filled warnings to anyone who’ll listen.

This is the film where eternal showman Castle revealed his classic “Emergo” stunt of flying a skeleton on wires over theater patrons, but even without gimmicks the film stands strong on its own, supplying equal measures of eerie jolts and campy fun. (Favorite moment: the Miss Glydes, aka the blind housekeeper.)

House on Haunted Hill is available now on Blu-ray from Film Masters, of which we are HUGE fans thanks to their previous work cleaning up and restoring classic genre pieces. I confess, this latest release falls a bit short of their usual sterling work, as a few scenes seem a bit fuzzy while others are beautifully sharp. I’m not sure if that’s simply the source material that we’re looking at, i.e. that Castle actually shot and released it that way, but it doesn’t seem right and I haven’t yet taken the time to do a side-by-side comparison between Shout Factory’s release 10 years ago as part of their Vincent Price Collection II.

Also, I’ve grown accustomed to the usual bevy of supplemental featurettes and interviews from FM, whereas all we get here is a delightfully informative audio commentary by noted film scholar Heath Holland, who does a dandy job detailing everyone’s work on television (especially Perry Mason appearances), as well as a 10-page booklet of liner notes from Jason A. Ney and an unremarkable cardboard slipcover.

So, if you’re looking for an upgrade of from your 50-Movie Pack public domain version and you’re not already in possession of Shout Factory’s release, this one is worth picking up, despite its minor shortcomings. You can pick it up today at Movie Zyng Warehouse (because seriously, F*CK AMAZON). Enjoy!! 

 And if you're short on cash, I'm sure Mr. Loren would be happy to offer you a place at the next gathering.

Special Thanks to AV Entertainment as the sponsor of the review copy.