Amazon.com Customer Reviews
 Rated 4 out of 5
Beware the night.
Five people are challenged to spend the night in a haunted house. As you can see, this flick just oozes with original ideas. This fright festival of 1959 vintage has a treasured place in the realm of "so bad, it’’s good" nostalgia that keeps aging baby boomers going. Schlock director William Castle pulls out all the stops in this hilarious re-working of the "haunted house" cliches. The humor is no doubt unintentional, but who cares? It’’s still funny 40 years later. Vincent Price mugs his way through the script looking pained and worried in all the expected places. The obligatory vat of acid in the basement serves its usual purpose. As the screaming Nora Manning encounters the dead woman hanging in the stairway, a monstrous hand reaches around the corner and grabs for her. This tidbit of terror goes otherwise unexplained. Another thing that leaves the viewer wondering is the spot on the ceiling that drips blood. It’’s spooky, but the script takes it nowhere. The house itself looks more as an ancient Egyptian temple than the Victorian manse that typically populates haunted house stories. Elisha Cook hangs around as the descendant of the original owner. When he is drunk enough he gloomily foretells doom. The old lady who floats through the basement is a great funhouse moment. Put it all together and it is fine fun, in a reverse sort of a way. Watch it on Halloween or any time that Saturday matinee nonsense is warranted. The cleaned-up DVD version is more palatable than the lower grade VHS edition that previously haunted our movie shelf. Recommended for multiple viewing. ;-) Rated 2 out of 5
Not scary, but I still loved it 1.5 stars as horror
I have to rate this as a horror film. I think it was actually ment to be a black comedy, and viewed in that since, it’’s great. Rated 5 out of 5!
Camp Classic, Vincent Price Vehicle
Released in 1958, "House on Haunted Hill" was one of those great vehicle films for Vincent Price. Vincent Price. Now there was a truly great actor. Although he is most credited for being a horror, suspense or mystery film star with his spooky presence and his menacing voice, he has been able to portray various roles- from an average working man, nobility to even an Egyptian task master in "The Ten Commandments" starring Charlton Heston. Primarily doing films in the 50’’s and 60’’s, Vincent Price makes a good performance in this film. If anything, you should watch this film for Vincent Price’’s character.Price plays an eccentric, murderous millionaire who is hosting a party upon the suggestion of his conniving wife. She is in fact plotting with one of the participants to kill her husband and to get his fortune. Nevertheless, crazy old Vincent Price is also plotting to murder his wife, as he has done his other three wives before. Gathering guests (all who are in need of money) he welcomes them to a "party" in which they must spend the night in the large, haunted mansion to get ten thousand dollars. The house was never really haunted. The gimmicks - from a woman being hanged, to ghostly apparitions to an organ playing and walking skeletonwas all the crafty inventions of Vincent Price. The movie contains dark humor, much suspense and mood. In a time before blood and gore became the norm for horro films, this film relied on building up atmosphere and suspense. The film can be a bit dull at times, and frankly, not very frightening, but for the sake of watching Vincent Price or a classic horror film, it’’s a good buy. Some unforgettable lines in the film are Vincent Price saying such sordid remarks as "Every husband wishes to kill his wife but the problem is how to go about doing it so that no one would ever suspect he did it" and "It was my wife’’s idea to have the guests arrive in funeral cars." Loads of horrific fun.
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