Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
Frederick Loren invites five strangers to the party of a lifetime and offers each of them $10,000 if they can stay the night in the reportedly haunted house. Armed with a gun for protection, each guest arrives in a hearse and will either leave in it much richer…Or dead.
House on Haunted Hill is a solidly entertaining B-movie haunted house thriller elevated primarily by Vincent Price's charismatic, campy performance and William Castle's showmanship gimmicks. The plot is a competent but fairly mechanical 'survive the night' setup with a twist that telegraphs itself somewhat early. The acting is serviceable with Price carrying the film, but the supporting cast is uneven. Cinematography is functional black-and-white work that creates atmosphere without being especially inventive. Novelty gets a bump for Castle's theatrical flair and the film's unique carnival-barker spirit, though the haunted house premise itself was already well-worn by 1959. The ending's twist, while clever for its era, relies on a rather contrived mechanical device that undercuts the tension built throughout.