Monday, October 13, 2014

MadCap's Reel Thoughts - "House on Haunted Hill" (1959)

...oh, you thought I was gonna do the 1999 one? The one where Jean Grey, Niki Saunders, and Weyoun spent a night in an abandoned asylum with Captain Barbosa for a million dollars? Pfft, why watch that when I could watch the stylings of the one and only Vincent Price? Why settle for cheesy shlock when I can get my horror in black and white, clear as crystal? Why...okay, I don't have a third question here, sue me. Let's get on with the show. After all, it's October and the horror season continues with some older old school stuff!

We begin with our set up.  The voice of Fredrick Loren (Price) a millionaire with a taste for the macabre who has invited five individuals to the "only real haunted house in the world" for a party.  Alongside his wife, Annabelle (Carol Ohmart), Loren greets the five persons he has invited to this house with the promise of ten thousand dollars for each of them.  Lance Schroeder (Richard Long), Ruth Bridges (Julie Mitchum), Dr. David Trent (Alan Marshal), Nora Manning (Carolyn Craig), and the owner of the house, Watson Pritchard (Elisha Cook). The doors will be locked at the stroke of midnight, and anyone who remains after that time will collect their share of the money.

...those that don't, however...well, Mr. Loren will still be a few tens of thousands of dollars richer.

And so, we're treated to an old-fashioned ghost story, complete with several cliches that are now commonplace in most haunted house stories today.  The creepy Gotchic scenery covered in cobwebs, the creepy caretakers, secret passages that close behind you upon entering, and pulling off the head in a box routine almost forty years before Se7en pulled it off. The film definitely does an excellent job of playing up whether or not the "ghosts" are real or are just pranks and jokes played by the Loren.  Further blurring the lines between the real world and that of the next is Loren's wife, who takes pains to inform the guests that her husband is several fries short of a Happy Meal before she hangs herself...or does she?

On the non-supernatural side of things, we have the dynamic between Loren and his wife which factors heavily into the film.  In spite of the fact that, according to Loren, that the party is her idea, Annabelle seems highly opposed to the party and only attends it due to the threat of physical violence (domestic disputes, you see, being commonplace and acceptable in the 1950s), which further puts some question onto the already murky psyche that Loren seems to have.  Eccentric, indeed...but psychotic? That's a question left entirely to the viewers.

The other characters are rather flat.  We have a test pilot, a columnist, a psychiatrist, and a temp along with the house's owner, but none of these professions (except for the psychiatrist's) factor at all into the story, and we really learning nothing about them outside of Vincent Price's character, his wife, and the owner of the house, Mr. Pritchard. Pritchard, in another life, will be the security guard who believes the Devil is around because toast lands butter side down.  He is the believer, almost to the point of where I was questioning his sanity at points.  Not helping that is that the man is a heavy drinker, and Price gives everyone in the house a loaded forty-five for protection.

...yes, Vincent, because that will end well.

The other notable character is Nora, an employee of Price's (though who has never met him before) who is almost immediately the subject of several supernatural horrors, such as horrific encounters with the female caretaker (who is deformed and blind) and witness to various sights throughout the place that the others held with some great skepticism until the game is afoot, things which drive her far to the point of hysteria.  And, to give Carolyn Craig full credit, she can really hit the high notes with screaming.  I mean, good grief!

This film has the cheesy dissonance that comes from films outside the modern era, though it's definitely a welcome thing.  House on Haunted Hill is a very suspenseful, dark film that definitely lives up to all the hype even now. To say it's good is just not giving enough credit.  Like many originals, the remakes just don't do it justice.  I won't spoil the ending, because it's really just that good. Ultimately, the question of whether the "ghosts" of the house became involved at all is - like the question of Loren's sanity - an exercise left entirely up to the viewer.  At the end, Pritchard seems to think the ghosts are coming for him...and soon, they will come for...us!

But that's obviously a bunch of nonsense. Besides, if it were...say...some kind of malevolent force that was taking on the forms of other people in the house in order to drive virtually everyone to insanity...that'd be just stupid, right? Man, I'm lucky this film doesn't have crap like that...

House on Haunted Hill is now available on DVD and through Netflix Instant Streaming.

For the latest form the MadCapMunchkin, follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

October's Reel Thoughts will continue next week with...


"The Evil Dead"

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