User Reviews
(Average=4.24 out of 5; Total Number=74)
FOR 10,000 DOLLARS WOULD YOU SPEND A NIGHT WITH VINCENTPRICE (rating=5)
I absolutley loved this movie. The script writting is wonderful,the acting is treamendous and the surprises you will see in this movie keep you at the end of your seat. This is trueley Vincent Price at his best. The ghost in the basement, the hanged body in the stairwell and the skeleton which appears at the end of the film. Also stars Carol O'Mart,Richard Long, Alan Marshall and Carolyn Craig. This film never has a dull part. So, If you you don't have this movie,you need to buy it.
A Fiendishly Clever Horror Classic (rating=5)
Just imagine, a haunted house movie that is actually scary. As a jaded modern horror fan watching the video at home, I can't say it really scared me, but I daresay that if you put a couple of hundred people inside a modern movie theatre and showed this film to them, you would get some delightful screams and jumps out of your audience. A movie such as this belongs in black and white, and the whole mood is appropriately creepy. The director left almost nothing out: creaking doors, apparitions, secret rooms, screams (almost so many they become annoying), skeletons, thunder and lightning, organ music, moments of total darkness, a pit of acid, and, last but not least, the inimitable Vincent Price in the role he was born to play. The movie opens with a black screen and the sounds of screaming and moaning, then the disembodied heads of the home's owner and then Loren (Price) float up and introduce the tale to the audience. The credits appear sort of Scooby Doo-ish, but that's not a problem.
As for the plot, Mr. Loren (Price) is an eccentric man of wealth throwing a haunted house party for his wife--wife number four, and she is as anxious to kill him as he is to kill her. Five strangers make up the party guests--a former test pilot, a society newspaper columnist, a psychiatrist, an unassuming, vulnerable young lady, and the house's owner Pritchard, who incessantly tells the story of the murders having taken place in the house and continually warns everyone (in between drinks) that the ghosts will never let them survive the night. Each guest has been promised the incredible sum of $10,000 if he/she can survive the night inside the house. Naturally, weird things start to happen, and then all of the party goers find themselves locked in the house prematurely with no hope of escape until morning. Loren distributes the party favors--handguns housed in little miniature coffins. Naturally, rather than stay together, the houseguests end up wandering around on their own, and Norah is especially traumatized throughout the evening by what she sees and experiences. Mrs. Loren is soon found hanging above the stairwell, and the night really starts going downhill after that for everyone else. There are games afoot, the full extent of which are not revealed until the ending of the film. In its original theatrical release, the ever so fiendish director William Castle had a skeleton rigged inside each theater that would appear above the audience's heads at the appropriate time...
This is definitely one of the finer horror movies ever made. The effects may seem somewhat silly to modern audiences, but the simplest frights are often the most effective. The ending is not altogether disappointing, which is another plus. The plot itself is gratifyingly complex and twisted. Anyone with an interest in the horror genre should find this Vincent Price gem to be quite a hoot.
Price's Best (rating=5)
House on Haunted Hill is a classic movie about eccentric millionare named Frederick Lauren and his wife, Annabelle. They rent an old, creepy, gloomy house on a desolate hill and throw a party, "a haunted house party." The party only has has 7 guests, 4 men and 3 women (the same amout of people that have died in the house). If each guest stays all night in the house they each recieve $10,000, "or they're next of ki[n] just in case they don't survive." Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart and Elisha Cook star in this wonderful terrifying classic directed by William Castle. This movie is great because its origional,&they use props like fake heads in suitcases, and organs playing music with no player, instead of computers like the awful remake from 1999. See this movie you'll really enjoy it.
