William Castle's "The House on the Haunted Hill" is classic 1959 haunted house flick, one can see the influence upon Walt Disney's "Haunted Mansion" with a touch of modernism. Unlike the usually gothic cliches from such a haunted house, this house of Vincent Price and Carol Omhart seems to have been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Besides "Spider Baby or The Maddest Story Ever Told," "The House on the Haunted Hill" is Carol Omhart's best known movie. Not quite a scream queen, Omhart is a sexy and flirty evil.The ensemble cast includes Richard Long, before he made his mark on the television shows "The Big Valley" and "Nanny and the Professor." Elisha Cook Jr. opens the film with a warning about ghosts in "The House on the Haunted Hill," he is perfectly creepy as he details the previous murders in the house.
Being a William Castle film, gimmicks rule over substance, but this film is so much fun. This is the famous Castle movie in which the EMERGO skeleton makes a cameo appearence. While this might be a disappointment on the small televsion screen or a cell phone, in the theatres the EMERGO skeleton was dropped by a movie projectionist at the appropriate time.
