House on Haunted Hill (1959) on Netflix
Frederick Loren rents a reportedly haunted house and throws a party there for his fourth wife, Annabelle. Five strangers are promised $10,000 each to remain in the house overnight.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb6.7/1035,234 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes80%
Trailer
Plot summary
Frederick Loren has rented a house said to be haunted and is giving a party there for his fourth wife, Annabelle. Those who come include Lance Schroeder, a test pilot; Ruth Bridges, who writes a newspaper column; Dr. David Trent, a psychiatrist; Nora Manning, an employee of a Loren company; and Watson Pritchard, who owns the house. None of them knows the couple or one another. Loren promises each guest $10,000 for remaining until morning once the doors are locked at midnight. The windows are barred, and there is no electricity, telephone or radio. Pritchard holds that the ghosts of people murdered in the house are still there, his brother among them, and he shows the visitors a basement vat of acid that a former resident used to kill his wife.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about House on Haunted Hill (1959)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The success of William Castle's low-budget chiller drew Alfred Hitchcock's attention: he noticed its box-office performance and went on to make his own low-budget horror film, Psycho (1960).
- For the original release, some theaters rigged an elaborate pulley system near the screen so that a plastic prop skeleton, part of Castle's "Emergo" gimmick, was flown over the audience late in the film.
- Exterior shots of the haunted house were filmed at the Ennis House in Los Feliz, California, a historic home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built in 1924.
- Modern repertory cinemas, among them the Film Forum, Loew's Jersey Theatre, Alex Theatre and Music Box Theatre, have hosted screenings of the film in which the "Emergo" skeleton gimmick was recreated.
- Several art pieces owned by the film's star, Vincent Price, were used as set decoration for House on Haunted Hill.
