House On Haunted Hill (1959)
Starring: Vincent Price, Agnes Moorehead, Richard Long, Carol Ohmart
Director: William Castle
Synopsis: Campy family spookfest
Reviewed by: Omar Khan

Vintage and typically campy "fright fest" from the master showman William Castle is also about as scary as a Christmas cracker! However it moves along jauntily very much akin to a ride on a creaking, rickety ghost train on one of those grim, decaying fairground carnivals.

Nasty things and creatures pop out at you at unexpected moments; rats are dissolved in a grave of acid after which a skeleton pops out just to prove a point. The premise is that an unbalanced millionaire decides to flaunt his wealth and his devotion to his wife for whom he organizes a bizarre party. The guests who are all seemingly previously unknown to the hosts are to be paid a grand sum of $10,000 to spend the night at the House on Haunted Hill.

The reason given to them by Vincent Price, their host is that it is to amuse his wife with whom he clearly has a less than perfect relationship. The guests are told that the house is supposedly haunted and soon they begin to find strange and nasty things in the air. Leading the list of oddities are the bizarre housekeeping couple. The wife seems to slide along on thin air and has a habit of appearing from and disappering into a background at any given moment.

She is also ravishingly beautiful, at least in the eyes of some. Vincent Price plays it all with his usual deadpan seriousness, coated with just the right amount of hamminess that only he as a master of his craft could muster. Under his utterly serious expression you just know he is dying to laugh really uncontrollably hard.

The guy who became Professor from TV's "Nanny and the Professor" also features, looking dapper and suave as the debonaire type. No wonder he ended up as the glib "professor". Its all good clean, family fun for the famlily sort of horror film, entertaining but not scary for a moment, unless you are under say 8 years old and haven't ever played a video game in your life.

The chances that this will scare you are remote indeed. It will illicit a few laughs though and can certainly be thoroughly be enjoyed under the right circumstances. Listen up for the "ghost theme" which is about as chilling as an episode of Scooby Doo.