Review of House on Haunted Hill (1959) by Kurt B — 07 Jan 2011

Another murder mystery starring Vincent Price in almost an exactly same setting, this time the stars of the movie are unable to the leave the house that is apparently haunted. Vincent has decided to host a party in the house inviting random individuals to stay the night for $10,000 each which will have been a lovely sum considering the time of which the movie is set.

I was worried from the off with this film, the introduction was very cheesy especially when this dudes head pops up and tells the viewers the crack of the story line with some horrendous acting, even when the superimposed Mr Price himself pops up on the backdrop still of the mansion saying he rented the house also had me worried. Then the narration of Vincent Price introduces the rest of the characters that would be staying at the house which wasn't too bad as it had a bit of originality. There was one other problem; the score was diabolically bad which is never good thing as it resurfaces throughout and you will be continuously faced with the same irritation, it sounded like one of those cheep sci-fi eerie pieces of music where the alien slowly emerges from a spacecraft.

In comparison to "The Bat" the story line of this movie was far better; it had me guessing more what the crack was so much more. Was it Vincent, was it one of the people he invited who were committing the murders and when I couldn't figure it out I ended up going back to maybe the house is actually haunted? As there was plenty of evidence suggesting so. Another comparison to "The Bat" would be the setting of the film, to me this again won as it seemed as if it was actually filmed within a mansion as some shots had the camera pan 360 in a room and sometimes you could see the roof whereas "The Bat" seemed almost like it was just filmed in a studio. I have to credit this movie for doing one thing a horror film hasn't done to me in a while, I shat bricks at one scene where the camera pans and the alleged ghost is behind the person as it was so surprising and looked really grotesque in black and white like one of those Jack the Ripper victim photos...