The film was given a worthwhile big-budget remake as House on Haunted Hill (1999). Vincent Price and Carol Ohmart play off one another with a marvellously glacial dislike. Nevertheless, the luridness of Castle’s pop-up effects and some effective plot twists on behalf of frequent Castle collaborator Robb White make the film an undeniably entertaining carnival show. William Castle lacked any style as a director and his pace is slow and pedestrian – his films invariably belied the threat of scaring people to death that he constantly promised to do. Carol Ohmart attacked by a pop-up skeletonĭramatically, House on Haunted Hill is talk heavy. The plot involves a group being offered $10,000 each if they can survive a night in the titular house and Castle even uses star Vincent Price as the equivalent of a carnival barker at the start of the film, having him turn to the screen to offer the same challenge directly to the audience. In House on Haunted Hill, Castle does not just stop at theatrical gimmickry – the entire film has been constructed as the cinematic equivalent of a fairground haunted house show with heads popping up out of boxes, ghosts out of closets, hanging bodies and acid pools. The great gimmick in House on Haunted Hill was having a skeleton winched across the theatre on a wire at the point in the film when a skeleton appears to rise from an acid pool and pursue the heroine. Castle conducted stunts like taking out insurance policies in case audiences died of fright – Macabre (1958), or wiring theatre seats up with electric shock buzzers to jolt audiences at appropriate moments – The Tingler (1959). William Castle was a filmmaker who conceived his films in a spirit of entrepreneurial hucksterism not unakin to that of a P.T. House on Haunted Hill is one of the films of the great William Castle. camera operator: second unitĪrthur Lemming. stunt double: Mike Pratt (uncredited)īrian Elvin. Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Later on, while on the diamonds case, Jeff receives a phone call telling him to meet at a warehouse so that he can gain some interesting information on the robbery. The two investigate, but are both scared away by the horrifying sounds. He tells Jeff to go instead, and to his horror, Jeff agrees.
Marty explores the Manor and hears terrifying noises which convince him that the house is genuinely haunted. Since Jean is away on holiday - her sister Jennifer currently filling-in for her instead - Jeff has no problem in taking the diamond case and assigning his ghostly partner Marty to the haunted house. Waller ran away after hearing clanking chains and screams emanating from the attic. For once, business is booming in the Randall and Hopkirk office: an insurance company hires Jeff to investigate the disappearance of a shipment of diamonds, and then a real estate agent hires Jeff to look into rumours that Merston Manor, a house scheduled to go on the market, is haunted - the last two investigators, Henry Mace Horsfall and Frederick P.