Review: House on Haunted Hill (1959)

House on Haunted Hill (1959)

Not rated

Score: 3 out of 5

House on Haunted Hill, the cult classic William Castle spook show, is a movie that shouldn't hold up as well as it does after more than sixty years. A lot of the acting is hokey. The special effects are cheesy. It was built around a movie-theater gimmick where, during the climax, a prop skeleton would fly over the theater seats, one that obviously doesn't work when you're watching in the living room with your dad. But you know what it does have? Vincent Price being his creepy self, a great, well-utilized mansion setting, plenty of atmosphere, and a simple yet effective twist that gives the film just the right amount of ambiguity to stay with you. It's why it still holds the edge over the remake despite decades' worth of advances in special effects technology. It may not be a great film, and your enjoyment of it will depend on your tolerance for '50s B-movie kitsch, but it still gets the job done.

The plot concerns Frederick and Annabelle Loren, a wealthy couple who invite five people to stay the night for a party at a supposedly haunted mansion that they rented out for the purpose. The test pilot Lance Schroeder, the newspaper columnist and compulsive gambler Ruth Bridges, the psychiatrist David Trent, the typist Nora Manning, and finally, the house's owner Watson Pritchard are all invited, promised $10,000 if they stay at the house and survive until the morning. Pritchard is convinced that the house is haunted by the ghosts of seven people who have died on its grounds, and sure enough, Nora and Lance soon face mysterious presences that sure seem like ghosts. And when Annabelle is found dead, hanging from a makeshift noose in the stairwell that she could not have rigged herself, Pritchard is seemingly vindicated. But was it a ghost, or an all-too-human murderer? After all, Annabelle was Frederick's fourth wife, the other three having all either disappeared or died mysteriously, and the two of them made no secret of their hatred for one another. Frederick claims he's innocent, but that doesn't disqualify the rest of the house from suspicion -- especially given that there's money on the line, and Frederick said that anybody who dies will have their share of the pool distributed evenly to the other guests.

Vincent Price and Carol Ohmart sit at the center of the film as Frederick and Annabelle. While Nora and Lance are the film's protagonists, it's Frederick and Annabelle who are its real main characters, their scheming driving the plot and the various twists and turns it takes. Their dynamic is that of two people who, if they ever did love each other, certainly don't anymore, the two of them both fantasizing about killing their spouse and getting into passive-aggressive spats with each other, rarely even bothering to keep it out of public view. Just like Geoffrey Rush and Famke Janssen in the remake, Price and Ohmart are the best thing about this film by a mile, playing a pair of larger-than-life figures carrying on their own personal war with one another. Price made his name playing characters like this, vaguely menacing figures with deep voices and an ominous demeanor who you just know are up to no good even if they're not obviously evil, and have a great way of finding themselves in the presence of bad things going down. Ohmart, meanwhile, is a glamorous schemer who, even in death, seems to have her own plan afoot from beyond the grave. Ghosts or no ghosts, only one of them is going to win their battle of wits, and the two of them make that battle a gripping one; while the ultimate plot turns out to be rather straightforward, the misdirection employed by the both of them is a journey in and of itself.

The house, of course, is the other main character here. While the place is as gothic as can be, it's also strangely modern in its own way, fusing exterior shots of Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis House with a more traditional interior. The place is loaded with secret passages, hidden doors, and all manner of other secrets that somebody, living or otherwise, with bad things on their mind could use to get the jump on the characters. The more I think about it, the more I suspect that this film was no small inspiration for the original Resident Evil video game, with its setting full of puzzles and secrets. The mansion was a perfect setting that the film used very well, hyping it up with Pritchard's legend, great sound design, and showcases of some of its more unusual elements such that, when the wheels of the plot went into motion, it felt like anything could happen to the main characters. It was enough to make up for scares that, these days, are pretty lacking. Two of the big ones, that of a creepy woman who appears behind Nora and the climatic scene of a skeleton attacking someone, felt almost laughable nowadays, and while some of the plot turns do justify them looking rather hokey, they were still intended to scare the viewer. It's here where the old William Castle reliance on gimmicks hurt the film the most; this was meant to be a theatrical experience, and without the audience and the flying skeleton prop, it just isn't the same. Most of the supporting cast save for Price and Ohmart was also fairly dull, and the film couldn't seem to find much use for all of them despite having only seven major characters. Pritchard served mainly as Mr. Exposition talking about all the bad things that have gone on in the house and how it's so evil, while Ruth had little to do beyond sit on the couch and remark about some of the things that happen to the others. Pritchard could've gotten more to do in order to create more ambiguity as to what was really going on in the house (is it haunted like he says, or does he have ulterior motives?), while Ruth could've been killed off early (perhaps when the falling chandelier almost hits her?) to up the stakes rather than hang around doing nothing for as long as she did.

The Bottom Line

House on Haunted Hill is a better mystery than it is a horror film, its atmosphere, its plot, and its two great lead performances from Price and Ohmart holding up much better than its scares and its special effects. It's a cult classic more than anything, but it's still a classic for a reason.