Welcome back to Dark Corners Streaming.
With 1959’s House on Haunted Hill, which you can find on Youtube,
William Castle, King of the low budget shocker, breathed new life into the creaky old dark house movie
by keeping his tongue firmly in his cheek.
‘Now don’t tell me you’re taking this seriously.’
Aided and abetted by star Vincent Price.
‘There’ll be food and drink and ghosts, and perhaps even a few murders – you’re all invited.’
Who asks us to join him and his guests spending a night in a haunted house,
making the audience part of what follows,
something at which Castle excelled.
‘If I were going to haunt anybody this would certainly be the house I’d do it in.’
The plot is little more complex than that;
Price’s millionaire Frederick Loren, has invited five apparently random people to spend a single night in a haunted house,
‘4 men have died here and 3 women.’
each receiving $10,000 if they make it through the night.
While he and his wife have a little game of their own going.
‘Remember the fun we had when you poisoned me.’
This is less a movie and more a fairground ride, and I don’t mean that as a bad thing,
I think that’s exactly what Castle was going for,
to make the movie version of a carnival haunted house,
with no curtain left unfluttered,
no candle left unflickered
and no cliché left unexplored.
‘The Doc thinks he going to kill one of us.’
If it was being presented as serious horror then it would be laughable.
Fortunately its meant to be laughable,
but the laughter puts you at your ease so it still has the power to make you jump.
Key to this approach is the casting of Price,
and I do think this wouldn’t work without his unique gift for taking this sort of film seriously without it becoming serious.
‘But we have some party favours for you in these little coffins.’
The film does lose momentum when people start talking and trying to figure out what’s happening to them,
‘I’m not afraid of your ghosts Pritchett, but I am afraid.’
made worse by the lack of engaging characters amongst the guests –
although Carol Ohmart as Annabelle Loren is a stand-out, sparring impressively with Price.
‘Of all my wives you’re the least agreeable.’ ‘But still alive.’
But Castle was a smart enough entertainer not to let his picture get bogged down too often,
keeping the hokey shocks coming,
until you wonder how Carolyn Craig managed to keep her voice for all that screaming.
#Scream#
Building towards the film’s most famous scene.
It wouldn’t be a William Castle film without a gimmick
and in theatres this scene was accompanied by a process called Emergo,
in which a plastic skeleton popped out of a box by the screen and swooped over the audience.
Because, remember, we’re guests in this house as well.
‘They’re coming for me now. And they’ll come for you.’
The wonderful thing about cinema is that it can do The Seventh Seal or Citizen Kane and it can also do this.
and you’re allowed to love both.
Thanks for watching. What are your favourite William Castle films
and what Castle-esque gimmicks would you add to modern horror films?
Let us know in the comments below.