House on Haunted Hill (1959)

Film Title: House on Haunted Hill

Released: February 17, 1959

Directed by: William Castle

Written by: Robb White

Starring: Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart, Richard Long, & Elisha Cook, Jr.

Plot: Five people are offered $10,000 each to stay overnight in a haunted house with an eccentric millionaire and his wife.

IMDb: 6.9/10

Rotten Tomatoes: 95/100

My Score: 4/5

There's no denying that House on Haunted Hill is a classic of the horror genre, and for good reason. Vincent Price is of course one of the patriarchs of classic horror and I have a soft spot for Carol Ohmart because she was in the wonderfully demented Spider Baby. The story set up is simple and straightforward but the plot twists are what elevate this one from your run of the mill ghost story. Recommended viewing. Director William Castle had a knack for devising gimmicks to promote his films, usually to great success. For House on Haunted Hill, he used "Emergo," an intricate pulley system installed in select theaters that allowed a plastic skeleton to be flown over audience at the right time during the film. The success of this film piqued the interest of filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock, who he started devising his own low-budget horror film based on a novel written by Robert Bloch called Psycho. House on Haunted Hill was remade in 1999, with a sequel appearing in 2007. Watch a trailer for the film below or the entire film here.