House on Haunted Hill

Not one of sleaze producer/director William Castle's better productions (Castle was infamous for his gimmick pictures wherein audience members' seats might be wired with joy buzzers, or "life insurance" might be sold to anyone in the lobby who happened to die of fright during the picture), this unclassic is a staple on cheap DVD collections from the Dollar Store, so it has its el cheapo charm. So, of course, I had to finally sit down and watch all 117 minutes or so of it. It's pretty much as you would expect. The only saving grace is the presence (no pun) of Vincent Price, and the redoubtable old character actor Elisha Cook Jr., playing Elisha Cook Jr. obsessed with ghosts and wandering around mumbling about how "the spirits are active tonight," and other such tommy-rot as if he were going for cheap laugh-track induced chortles on some bad sitcom from the mid-Eighties, perhaps.

Price has set up a "murder nite" mystery party out of "Scooby Doo," and invited some seemingly random collection of desperate "just plain folks" to spend the night in his haunted mansion, which in reality looks like some modern architectural nightmare where David Lynch might live. They are each informed that if they spend the night--and survive!--they get ten thousand dollars. But, they can't leave, or crawl out the window, and someone's mother-in-law or something beheaded some people or sawed them in half or dipped them in acid. I can't remember.

Elisha Cook Junior is comic and monomaniacal about "them ghosts." There's a handsome off-brand Fifties Hollywood Guy, a Girl Next Door, a sinister doctor with something up his sleeve, and a couple more folks seemingly along for the ride. Am I forgetting anyone?

Price's wife Annabelle is at the center of the plot, which, as stated before is ripped from an old episode of "Scooby Doo" with special effects of a decidedly "let's string that anatomical skeleton along by hanging it from the fishing line" variety that would have made Ed Wood proud.

There's a cool scene, kind of horror but still kind of comic, with a witchy, scary face popping up behind the actress playing "Norma." It's quickly wheeled away on roller skates, which is never explained later.

If you wanted a movie with any atmospheric thrills and chills, warning--this isn't it. There is an interesting trapdoor in the cellar where everything seemingly ends up defleshed and sludgy. The Girl Next Door almost gets toasted by falling in it (if I remember correctly, but nothing in this picture stays with you).

I've done two articles called "Turkey Bowl," both of them covering TWO movies that were so beautifully wretched that they didn't even deserve their review. Those films included the other most wretched of Vinny Price films, The Bat (with Agnes "Bewitched" Moorehead) as well as Alan Ormsby's Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things and Lady Frankenstein. All of them are toilet-bowl terrors and, while I don't suppose any of them are the "worst films ever made" (that particular distinction belonging to John Waters, most likely), they are pretty much without any saving graces except for the capacity to make the viewer roll his or her eyes and groan very loudly. Or maybe just fall asleep halfway through (most of them are mercifully short movies).

House on Haunted Hill was remade at one point, and I'm not sure why. It was bad enough the first time around. I would have done it up right, basted and buttered it, for "Turkey Bowl 3," but I haven't watched anything so comparably turd-like since viewing it two days ago and forgetting nearly everything about it in the interim. Did I mention Vincent Price was in it?

There's nothing to recommend it, save for the fact that it's easily accessible and full of camp cultiness. Of course, it does feature a performance by Vincent Price, and that alone makes it worth taking a spin around the block with. Otherwise, nothing here haunts the viewer quite so much as the fact that they just wasted over an hour of their earthly existence with this boring, kiddie-camp crap.

Starring Vincent Price, Elisha Cook, Carl Ohmart, Richard Long, Alan Marshal, Carolyn Craig, Julie Mitchum, Leona Anderson, and Howard Hoffman. Written by Robb White. Directed by William Castle.

House on Haunted Hill (Restored)

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