HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1958) ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: William Castle
Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart, Elisha Cook Jr.,
Richard Long, Carolyn Craig, Alan Marshall
A mysterious millionaire invites five guests to spend the night in a haunted mansion, with the promise that whoever survives till morning will take home $10,000. So you get 75 minutes of creaking doors, guttering candles, thunder and lightning, loaded guns in miniature coffins, severed heads, blood dripping from the ceiling, an organ that plays itself, a vat of acid in the cellar, Elisha Cook Jr. acting fidgety, and Vincent Price. None of it's especially scary. William Castle was an inventive (and shameless) B-movie marketeer with a gift for turning schlock gimmicks into quick profits. "House On Haunted Hill" was his showcase for "Emergo", which involved a skeleton planted somewhere in the theater darting out toward the audience at a particular point in the film. Theaters sold tickets and popcorn. Moviegoers screamed and laughed. Castle collected his money. Everybody had a good time. And except for the rare midnight screening on Halloween, "Emergo" never showed up again.
