Tue, Apr 28
8:00 pm	to	10:00 pm

Tuesday

Slab Cinema Slab across from La Tuna Icehouse, Probandt and Cevallos streets, . Slab Cinema screens classic and cult films. This week: “House on Haunted Hill” (1959). 8 p.m. Bring lawn chairs and blankets. Donations appreciated. Visit www.slabcinema.com.

House on Haunted Hill

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

House on Haunted Hill
Original theatrical release poster
Directed by	William Castle
Produced by	William Castle Robb White
Written by	Robb White
Starring	Vincent Price Carolyn Craig Elisha Cook Jr. Carol Ohmart Alan Marshal Julie Mitchum
Music by	Richard Kayne Richard Loring Von Dexter
Cinematography	Carl E. Guthrie
Editing by	Roy V. Livingston
Distributed by	Allied Artists
Release date(s)	17 February 1959
Running time	75 min (1h and 15m)
Country
Language	English
Budget	$200,000 (estimated)

House on Haunted Hill (1959) is a horror film B movie directed by William Castle, written by Robb White, and starring Vincent Price as eccentric millionaire Fredrick Loren. He and his fourth wife, Annabelle, have invited five people to the house for a “Haunted House” party. Whoever stays in the house for one night will earn $10,000 each. As the night progresses, all the guests are trapped inside the house with ghosts, murderers, and other terrors.

Exteriors shots of the house were filmed at the historic Ennis-Brown House in Los Feliz, California.

Contents [hide] 1 Plot Synopsis 2 Style 3 Release 4 Cast and characters 5 References 6 External links

// if (window.showTocToggle) { var tocShowText = "show"; var tocHideText = "hide"; showTocToggle(); }
//]]>

[edit] Plot Synopsis

House on Haunted Hill is the tale of five people invited to stay the night in a haunted house by an eccentric millionaire, Fredrick Loren, who is throwing the “party” for his fourth wife, Annabelle, with the stipulation that the power will be out and all doors will be locked at midnight, allowing no accessible escape. Anyone who stays in the house for the entire night, given that they are still alive, will each receive $10,000.

The five guests all arrive in hearses, which he explains may be empty now, but they may be in need of them later. He explains the rules of the party and gives each of the guests a gun for protection. Loren’s wife tries to warn the guests that her husband is psychotic, causing them to be very suspicious of him, especially Nora Manning, who becomes convinced that he’s trying to kill her when she keeps seeing mysterious ghouls, including the ghost of Annabelle, who had hung herself after being forced to attend the party.

After being driven into a fit of hysteria by the ghosts haunting her, Nora shoots Mr. Loren, assuming he is going to kill her. Dr. Trent, another guest, tries to get rid of the body by pushing it into acid, but the lights go out, and when they come back on, both of the men are gone. Annabelle emerges, having faked her death with the help of Dr. Trent, and having successfully tricked Nora into killing Loren. Suddenly, the skeleton of Loren emerges from the acid, approaching Annabelle and mourning how she’s killed him. In a panic, a screaming Annabelle accidentally backs into the acid herself. The real Mr. Loren walk out of the shadow, holding the pully that he was using to control the skeleton with, and watching Annabelle disintegrate.

Nora tells the other guests that she’s shot Loren in the cellar, and they all rush down there. When they arrive, they see that he’s actually alive, and he explains to him that his wife and Dr. Trent were having an affair, and they’d planned to trick Nora into murdering him so that they could get away with his money. Unfortunately for them, he had not loaded the guns with bullets, but powder, and he had not been killed. Just when everyone thinks the trauma is finally over, Mr. Pritchard, the house owner, looks up, a terrified expression on his face, and announces that the ghosts are finally coming for them.

[edit] Style

The theatrical trailer promoted the film as The House on Haunted Hill, although all advertising material, and the title on the film itself were simply titled House on Haunted Hill. The film is best known for a famous promotional gimmick used in the film’s original theatrical release called “Emergo”: William Castle placed an elaborate pulley system in some theaters showing the film; allowing a plastic skeleton to be flown over the audience at the appropriate time. ^{[1] [2]} In the late 1980s, the Film Forum in New York City had a revival of the film (along with several other Castle pictures) that included the original gimmicks.

Thanks to Castle’s gimmickry, the film was a huge success. Alfred Hitchcock took notice of the low-budget film’s performance at the box office, and set out to make his own low-budget horror film, which became the critically acclaimed hit Psycho (1960). Ironically, Castle himself was a Hitchcock fan, and tried to imitate Hitchcock’s work in later films such as Homicidal (1961).

[edit] Release

House on Haunted Hill was originally released by Allied Artists Pictures Corporation. The film has since become public domain, and is available in a number of issues. Two major studios have released the film in remastered versions. Warner Home Video released the film on DVD as a tie-in to promote the release of the 1999 remake. In 2005, the film was colorized by Legend Films. The color version was released on DVD the same year by 20th Century Fox. Extras prepared by Legend Films for the Fox DVD release included an audio commentary track by comedian Michael J. Nelson, of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame, two versions of the trailer, and a slideshow of images from the film’s original press book. Johnny Legend released a 50TH Anniversary DVD containing a whole slew of Extras such as both Original Theatrical Trailer and TV Spot plus several William Castle and Vincent Price Theatrical Trailers, A Carol Ohmart profile and Golden Age TV Shows starring Vincent Price. A DivX file of the colorized version with the commentary embedded is available as part of Nelson’s RiffTrax On Demand service.^[3] In 2009, a newly-recorded commentary by Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett was released by RiffTrax.^[4]

[edit] Cast and characters

• Vincent Price – Frederick Loren, a millionaire whose first three wives all died suspicious deaths.
• Carolyn Craig – Nora Manning, a mother whose husband died in a car accident.
• Richard Long – Lance Schroeder, a pilot
• Elisha Cook Jr. – Watson Pritchard, a man whose sister in law and brother were murdered in the house
• Carol Ohmart – Annabelle Loren, Frederick’s fourth wife.
• Alan Marshal – Dr. David Trent, a psychiatrist.
• Julie Mitchum – Ruth Bridgers, a columnist with a gambling problem.
• Leona Anderson – Mrs. Slydes, a housekeeper.
• Howard Hoffman – Jonas Slydes, another housekeeper.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• At Internet Archive [1]
• House on Haunted Hill at the Internet Movie Database
• House on Haunted Hill at Allmovie
• at Google Video
• Film at Free Full Videos .co.nr [2]

No Comments »