House on Haunted Hill

1958

Full size poster

Everybody say it: "One Meeee-llion Dollars!" (sorry, couldn't resist...)

In the 1958 William Castle production of House On Haunted Hill, Vincent Price starred as eccentric millionaire Frederick Loren, who offered $ 10,000 to the person who could spend the night in the title house where a series of gruesome murders had been committed.

In the 1999 version, the figure has been upped to 1,000,000 smackeroos. But even a million bucks isn't worth much today when you think about it--ah, where's my sense of verisimillitude?

The late, great William Castle, forum favorite and the infamous huckster/producer/showman extraordinaire who was so loving lampooned by John Goodman in Joe Dante's Matinee, followed up the smash success of his 1957 horror hit Macabre (itself a response to the French sensation Diabolique) with House On Haunted Hill, written by "Macabre" Robb White (later to pen the immortal The Tingler). Castle had won the commitment of star Vincent Price via a pithy pitch when he'd happened upon the actor downing a slice of pie in a coffee shop near Samuel Goldwyn Studios:

Castle: "A millionaire invites six people to to spend the night in a haunted house. He chooses the people carefully and offers to pay a great deal of money to each one if they agree to spend the ENTIRE night in the house."

Price: "Sounds interesting....go on."

Castle: "During the night, many strange ghostly things happen. Blood dripping from the ceiling. Walls shaking. Apparitions appearing. The millionaire has plotted to kill his wife. She has plotted to kill him. It's a battle of wits."

Price: "Who wins?"

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Castle: "You do. She tries to throw you into a vat of boiling acid."

Price: "How charming!"

Castle: "Suddenly, you rise slowly from the vat...body eaten away. You're a living skeleton! Your wife loses her balance and falls into vat the acid."

Price: "And where am I?"

Castle: "You're working your phony skeleton. Like a puppeteer."

Price reportedly committed following a second piece of pie.

(from William Castle's autobiography: Step Right Up, I'm Gonna Scare The Pants Off Of America, 1976, Puttman Books)

Vincent Price's new career as a horror icon was born, as was the lastest in Castle's series of trademarked gimmicks: Emergo.

The 1999 remake of House on Haunted Hill

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