HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1959)
Newly Restored Limited Edition Blu-ray
Label: Films Masters
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 75 Minutes 50 Seconds
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: William Castle
Cast: Vincent Price, Carolyn Craid, Richard Long, Carol Ohmart, Julie Mitchum, Alan Marshal, Carolyn Craig, Elisha Cook Jr
In the William Castle (The Tingler) directed chiller-thriller House on Haunted Hill (1959) horror icon Vincent Price (The Witchfinder General) pays eccentric millionaire, Frederick Loren, who on this night is throwing a party for his wife Annabelle (Carol Ohmart, Spider-Baby). As Frederick's jealousies have chased away all their actual friends he has instead invited five strangers to the house for a "haunted house" party, and whomever is brace enough to stay one full night in the allegedly house will win a cash price of $10,000.
The guests who are stranger to Loren and each other are test pilot Lance Schroeder (Richard Long, Cult of the Cobra); gossip columnist Ruth Bridges (Julie Mitchum, Hit & Run); head shrink Dr. David Trent (Alan Marshal, Day of the Outlaw); Nora Manning (Carolyn Craig, Apache Territory), who works for one of Loren's companies; and the house's actual owner, Watson Pritchard (Elisha Cook Jr., Messiah of Evil). Once agreed the doors are locked and the windows barred, and the guests are each given a handgun which dramatically arrives in miniature coffins, which is just so cool. Now armed and informed of the rules the haunted house the shenanigans get underway!
The Loren's are a seething, toxic couple full of mutual hatred, he believes she tried to poison him for his wealth, and she calls him a jealous paranoiac, they're verbal sparring is wonderful throughout the film, both have a smug charm, with Price's Frederick also having a delightfully macabre sense of humor. As the beings Loren asks Watson, who has lived in the house previously, and seemingly genuinely believes it to be haunted by it's past occupants who were murdered there, including his own brother. He has a nervous skittishness about him that suits the character quite well. During the tour of the home he takes the group down to the basement where he reveals a vat of acid hidden beneath a door in the floor, because who the heck doesn't have a vat of friggin' acid in their basement, am I right, folks?
As the night wears on the frights creep in, we get a rather eerie jump scare of a hag-looking apparition in a darkened hallway a severed head, hairy monster hand, one of the guests is hanged, and of course a floating skeleton, which was one of the gimmicks employed at he theaters, dubbed "Emergo" a 12-foot floating plastic skeleton would emerge and float over the crowd on cue - now that is showmanship my fright-filled friends!
As a kid watching this on WPIP it was a hoot, that jump-scare in the darkened hallway made my heart stop the first time I saw it, and the finale with the skeleton and the acid-cat, hell yeah! Watching it now, for probably about the 15th, time in my life, it's still quite the haunted house hoot, Price is well, priceless, I love that macabre sense of humor and upper crust smugness he was so good at portraying. Sure, a lot of it is quite silly and tosses logic and common sense right out the window, but I just love these gimmicky William Castle productions, they're total schlocky cat-nip and I will never grow tired of watching them.
Audio/Video: House on Haunted Hill (1959) gets a region-free Blu-ray from Film Masters, presented in 1080p HD framed in 1.85:1 widescreen. The film was previously issued on Blu-ray from Scream Factory as part of The Vincent Price Collection Vol. 2 Blu-ray set back n 2014, which is long out-of-print and quite spendy on the secondary market. The Scream Factory release was advertised as being sourced from a 2K scan of original film elements as I recall, but did not specify the source, which I am assuming was licensed from Warner Bros.. I can pretty much guarantee FM are not licensing anything from WB for this public domain film, and they too, also not been specific about the source of this "restored" version but I believe it to be from a film print. It looks quite solid, contrast and grayscale are excellent, and black levels are deep and inky without crush or compression. I wouldn't call it crisp-looking, coming from what I believe to be a print the grain can be uneven and a bit chunky looking, some of the finer detail in faces and clothing are not refined. Unfortunately my Vincent Price Collection Blu-ray is out on loan and I could not make a comparison for the sake of this review. I should be getting that set back early in the new year and will try to remember to add some screenshots comparisons. I will say, however, considering that the Scream Factory release is OOP and cost prohibitive, and given the generally strong merits of this release, I think this would be satisfactory option for those looking to have it in their collection. Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 2.0 dual-mono with optional English subtitles. The track is generally quite clean and well-balanced, it lacks oomph in the lower registers and is a tad thin in the higher registers, but does the job and is free of hiss or ugly distortions.
Onto the extras, we get a new Audio Commentary with Heath Holland of the Cereal at Midnight YouTube Channel is fast-moving, fun and well-informed, he gets into the location of the shoot at the Ennis House which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, the cast and crew, the somewhat ridiculous nature of the story that you just have to go along with, William Castle filmography leading up to House on Haunted Hill, and of course the gimmicks that pop-up, and how the film was received. He also discusses how the film inspired haunted house record albums, and in his opinion, may have been the inspiration for Disney's Haunted Mansion attraction. We also get a 12-page Illustrated Booklet with writing on the film via the essay "Hail to the King: In Praise of William Castle' by James A Ney in which he tracks Castle from fibbing automat dishwasher to a studio director, before tiring of the grind and funding his first independent film Macabre (1958), then into House on haunted Hill and beyond. The single-disc release arrives in a standard keepcase with a single-sided wrap and a Limited Edition Slipcover, both featuring separate original illustrated movie poster artworks for the film. The booklet also features the same cover artwork as the slipcover, inside there are images of other movie posters for The Tingler, Macabre and Mr. Sardonicus.
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary with Heath Holland, host of Cereal at Midnight YouTube Channel
- 12 Page Illustrated Booklet with writing on the fil by James A Ney
- Limited Edition Slipcover
Screenshots from the Film Masters Blu-ray:
Buy it!
