Netflix Review: The House on Haunted Hill (1959)

Almost as scary as waiting in line for the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland.


The House on Haunted Hill (1959)
Suggested Netflix Queue Position: 46


That's right, the original 1959 black-and-white with The Villain to Rule Them All, Vincent Price. (Not the 1999 remake drek. Ptooey.)

Vincent Price is still one of the best movie villains ever, even in this now-laughable, skeleton-on-a-string flick. His elegant-but-creepy persona has been copied hundreds of times, but no one really captures the subtle sense of joy Price has - he's about to kill you, but he's not convinced anything serious is going on. If his upbringing wasn't so refined, he'd giggle while dunking you in that vat of acid. Instead, he'll just apologize for the smell.

Price is a millionaire that offers five people $10,000 if they can last the night in a haunted house. Not just any haunted house - a low-slung concrete Frank Lloyd Wright home that looks more like a post office than a house. Not scary. The house is musty and full of cobwebs. There are full-time caretakers - why don't they clean up the cobwebs? But the caretakers are blind! So the cobwebs make sense.

Then Vincent gives the party guests all handguns out of tiny coffins. To protect themselves from ghosts. Huh.

Now, saying bad things about this movie is about as fair as kicking an old dog. It's almost 50 years old, and that gets a film a lot of leniency. However, I really hated the eye candy gal: she spends the entire time running around by herself, hysterical, shrieking, and clothed. No, no, no, and no. Bad horror movie girl! Bad!

When the movie's done, it's not really clear if the house is haunted or not. Were there ghosts, or was it just Vincent fucking with his gold-digger wife? Seriously, you don't know.

Anyway, this low-budget horror movie did so well in the theaters that it inspired Alfred Hitchcock to go off and make his own horror movie (aka Psycho).

It's also the first movie to feature "Emergo" where, at a crucial scene in the movie, a floating skeleton appears by the screen and drifts over the audience. Word got out among schoolboys, and they pelted the poor skeleton with pebbles from their slingshots. No more Emergo. Oh well. I hear The Guardian could've used it.