House on Haunted Hill

Hey everyone I don't think I've reviewed many scary movies so why don't I review this one. It is directed by William Castle (who is famous for making movies with gimmicks) and stars Vincent Price so this should be pretty good. It's a dark and stormy night so let's review House on Haunted Hill.

A man named Watson Prichard (Elisha Cook) tells the audience that he is the owner of a house he belives to be haunted. A eccentric millionare named Frderick Loren (Vincent Price) and his wife Annabelle (Carol Ohmart) rent the house to host a party. He invites Mr. Prichard, a jet pilot named Lance Schroeder (Richard Long), a psychiatrist named Dr. David Trent (Alan Marshall), one of Mr. Loren's employees named Norah Manning (Carolyn Craig), and a newspaper wrter named Ruth Bridgers (Julie Michum). They all arive at the house and find that their host is nowhere to be found. After a chandelier falls and almost hits one of the guests Mr. and Mrs. Loren show up and welcome them to the party. He says that after midnight they will be locked inside the house. Mr. Prichard tours them around the house and shows them the wine cellar where there is a vat of acid in the middle. Lance and Norah look around the cellar and Lance gets locked in a room. When the rest of them find hi he had been hit in the head very hard.



Lace says he must have bumped his head against the wall. However Lance and Norah go down stairs to the cellar again and look in the room where Lance bumped his head Norah sees what appears to be a ghost of an old woman but no one believes her.  Norah goes up to her room and an old man tells her to leave before it`s to late. It turns out that the ghost in the basement and the old man are just the caretakers of the mansion but they end up locking everyone in the house meaning that nobody can leave. To make things interesting Mr. Loren gives everyone guns. OK we are about halfway into this  murder mystery horror movie and we haven`t seen any ghosts and nobody is dead....kind of a misleading description. Everyone is looking around the house but then they realize that Norah is missing. But there is no time to worry about that because then Anabelle turns up dead and it looks like somebody hung her. Lance finds Norah and says someone tried to kill her so Lance hides her in his room while the rest go downstairs to descuss what is happening.

***SPOILER ALERT STOP HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT THE END RUINED***

They all make the decision to stay in their rooms and not leave for the entire night. But Norah sees the ghost of Annabelle at her window which causes her to snap and leave her room. Dr. Trent sees Norah and tells Mr. Loren that she is heading down to the basement. It turns out that Annabelle isn't dead and that she and Dr. Trent are working together to kill Mr. Loren. Mr. Loren heads into the basement where Norah accidently shoots him and kills him. Dr. Trent tries dumps his body into the vat of acid. Before we sees him being dumped we cut to Annabell going into the basment and and sees Mr. Loren's living skeleton which causes her to walk into the vat of acid. It turns out that the skeleton was just a puppet and that Mr. Loren used a bullet proof vest and tossed Dr. Trent into the vat of acid. So there weren't any ghost the whole time...or were there? The End.

***SPOILERS OVER KEEP READING***

House on Haunted Hill is a very silly movie. With over the top acting and bad special effects it doesn't hold up well now adays. The whole thing felt like an episode of Scooby Doo but it was all very hilarious to watch. Now there are some jump scares so I wouldn't recomend showing it to small children. But if you want a silly mystery this movie is for you. See you next time.