Other Titles • House on Haunted Hill • The House on Haunted Hill (1959) • Das Haus auf dem Geisterhügel (1959)
Synopses for House on Haunted Hill (1959)
1.
Vincent Price plays a seemingly sinister host who invites a group of acquaintances to what proves to be a strange and deadly party at his old haunted mansion. Each of his guests is promised $10,000 if they can survive the night. With countless frights, murders, ghosts, and more, the evening more than lives up to its terrifying expectations. A horror movie classic, The House On Haunted Hill, will fright and delight you!
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2.
The doors are locked at midnight! William Castle's gimmick-laden horror thriller is a fairground fun house come to life. Vincent Price stars as a suave, eccentric millionaire married to a beautiful and greedy gold digger. Together, they are hosting a party in a sinister haunted house. Five guests are invited to spend the night and each will get $10,000 - but only if they survive until morning. The doors are locked at midnight. Will you make it out alive? Presented in color for the first time, and beautifully restored, this is a DVD to die for.
(15 votes)
3.
William Castle's gimmick-laden comic thriller is not so much a horror movie as a fairground funhouse come to life. Vincent Price stars as a deliciously silky millionaire married to a greedy gold digger (Carol Ohmart) who refuses to divorce him. When he turns his wife's idea for a haunted-house party into a contest--$10,000 to whoever will spend the night in "the only truly haunted house in the world"--it seems he may have found an alternative to divorce. Five strangers gather to test their stamina, Price hands each of them delightfully twisted party favors (loaded handguns, delivered in their own tiny coffins), and the spook show begins. Blood drips from the ceiling, zombielike apparitions float through rooms, severed heads and skeletons suddenly appear, and then a guest is found hanging in the stairwell. Full of screams and things that go bump in the night, House on Haunted Hill isn't particularly scary and often makes little sense, but, like a Halloween haunted house, the spectacle of spook-show clichés is quite entertaining, and Price makes a sardonic master of ceremonies. The original theatrical presentations featured a typically outrageous Castle-engineered gimmick: Emergo, which was nothing more than a skeleton that appeared to fly out of the screen and over the audience on a guide wire. --Sean Axmaker
(15 votes)
4.
Vincent Price has one of his juiciest roles in this haunted-house thriller as millionaire playboy Frederick Loren, who invites five guests out to a genuine haunted house, offering them each $10,000 if they spend the night. Elisha Cook Jr. plays one of the guests, a nervous alcoholic who has been in this house before and witnessed some terrible things. Mr. Loren's beautiful but treacherous wife (Carol Ohmart) is also present--and might be out to kill Frederick during the course of the evening; then again, he might be out to kill her. Severed heads, a skeleton, an acid vat, ghostly screams, and a noose that creeps around on its own and strangles unsuspecting victims are just some of the treats in a film that has been spooking delighted audiences on late-night TV for decades. Producer-director William Castle (THE TINGLER) claimed this was filmed in a process called Emergo, which meant that at a key moment a glow-in-the-dark skeleton on a wire was rigged to sail over the audience's heads. The skeleton is long since gone, but the goofy thrills remain in this classic tale, from a script by Robb White.
(15 votes)
5.
Coming soon!
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6.
The Original Cult Classic
Eccentric millionaire Frederick Loren (Vincent Price) throws a haunted house party for his nasty wife, Annabelle (Carol Ohmart), in this cult classic from director William Castle (Strait-Jacket, The Night Walker).
Loren offers five guests $10,000 each if they can survive a night in the House on Haunted Hill, which is said to be haunted by the ghosts of seven people who were murdered there… and they won't be the only ones… Written by Castle's frequent collaborator, Robb White (Macabre, Homicidal), the film was originally released in "Emergo," in which a glowing skeleton emerged from the screen and flew right over the audience's heads! Co-starring with Price, who was reunited with Castle and White for The Tingler the next year, are Richard Long (Nanny and the Professor) and character actor Elisha Cook, Jr. (The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep).
7.
"The ghosts are moving tonight...restless, hungry..."
Eccentric millionaire Frederick Loren (Vincent Price) invites five seemingly random strangers to a macabre party in a legendary haunted mansion hosted by his wife, Annabelle (Carol Ohmart). The guests will each receive $10,000 if they agree to spend the night in the house-and survive! The partygoers, armed with handguns that are presented as party favors, are forced to deal with decapitated heads in suitcases, a vat of sulfuric acid in the basement and the discovery of Annabelle hanging from the rafters with a noose around her neck. The night is filled with terror, shocks and unexpected twists.
House On Haunted Hill is a highly inventive and unnerving horror cult classic that combines Vincent Price's menacingly suave persona with the renowned flamboyance of producer/director William Castle. Price delivers one of his most sinister performances, a tour de force of tongue-in-cheek evil. During its initial release, Castle, possessing a remarkable knack for gimmicks, rigged the theatres with a skeleton that flew out from the screen over the audiences' heads. Von Dexter's eerie music score creates a nervous tension broken by sudden bloodcurdling screams.
8.
There'll be no valets, no mints on the pillows. But each guest receives a much-needed amenity: a tiny coffin--with a gun inside. Wealthy Frederick Loren invites a handful of strangers to stay at an eerie abode--the site of seven murders. Each guest who survives the night will be rewarded $10,000. Any takers? Vincent Price's first film for gimmick genius William Castle.
9.
House on Haunted Hill - where the host pays you to stay! There'll be no valets, no mints on pillows. But each guest receives a much needed amenity: a tiny coffin…with a gun inside.
With its blood-curdling opening shriek, its blend of goofiness and headstone sobriety and its twist-upon-twist finale. House finds a home among the legends of the silver scream. Vincent Price, the master of unctuous evil with credits from the House of Wax to Edward Scissorhands, is at his oozily wicked best as a supremely wealthy man who invites a handful of strangers to stay an eerie abode that's been the site of seven murders. Each guest who survives the night will be rewarded $10,000. Any takers?
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