The Review: House On Haunted Hill (1959)

House On Haunted Hill 7/10




Me and L. wanted to watch some spooky films for the holidays so we decided to watch this, the 1959 classic House On Haunted Hill. This movie was weird as hell but I liked it. This rich dude decides to have five people come to this party he is throwing for his wife, Annabelle. His fourth wife. The others dead. She don't wanna go because he didn't invite any friends. The husband, Frederick Loren, is a weird ass guy. He says he will give 10,000 smackeroos to anyone that can stay the whole night in this place after the doors lock at midnight. Seems pretty easy, right? The five people are a test pilot named Lance, a newspaper woman named Ruth, a psychiatrist named Trent, this poor girl who gets all the scares named Nora, and the guy that owns the house named Watson. He drinks a lot and talks about previous murders in the place. None of these people know each other but they all want that money for different reasons.








Frederick thinks his wife wants to kill him and get his money. She is just like “Nuh-uh...” She is full on wicked city woman. Watson gives a tour of the place and talks about how he almost died there. Then he shows a fucking acid pit in the basement. Like, a full on pit just full of acid for god knows what reason. So naturally everyone starts splitting up and shit and Lance and Nora look around the basement. Lance heads into a room, gets bonked on the head, and Nora gets the bejeezus scared out of her by this witch woman. L. got scared too and I couldn't stop laughing. After Lance is patched up Frederick's wife is like “He gonna try and kill me. Help me handsome stranger.” So Frederick is like “Hey, you all get guns!” Oh, and the witch woman and this creepy dude are caretakers of the house. They lock the place up early and bounce.

Later Lance hears a scream and the wife Annabelle is dead hanging. Nora gets almost strangled. Lance is like “Everyone stay in your room.” The newspaper lady gets nothing but some ceiling blood dripped on her hand. Nora gets the witch woman, strangled, a head in a box, a ghost with a rope, and thinks she murdered a man. She is run through the damn wringer this movie! It turns out the wife is not dead. She and Trent are having an affair and think that Nora will shoot Frederick since everyone thinks he is killing people. Well, Nora does end up shooting his ass in the chest after he spookily comes down the stairs holding a gun. Trent goes to dump his body in acid when we hear a scream. Annabelle goes down like “That's all taken care of” looking for Trent when a goddamn skeleton comes out the acid and starts Thriller Night'n at her. She ends up back-flipping into the acid so she for reals dead now.

Turns out Frederick knew of the cheating and murder plan and the guns were blanks. He is like “Whelp. Guess I'm going to prison!” and leaves the room. That weirdo Watson is like “The house got more victim ghosts now!” The end. This was a fun old movie. I think you could play this for kids and they would be scared but not enough to have to sleep in your bed. Everyone played their parts well and the atmosphere of the place looked good. They have remakes of this but I don't plan on watching 'em.

Vincent Price as Frederick Loren

Carol Ohmart as Annabelle Loren

Richard Long as Lance Schroeder

Alan Marshal as Dr. David Trent

Carolyn Craig as Nora Manning

Elisha Cook Jr. as Watson Pritchard

Julie Mitchum as Ruth Bridgers

Leona Anderson as Mrs. Slydes

Howard Hoffman as Jonas Slydes

Skeleton as Himself

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