Director: William Castle
Writer: Robb White
Stars: Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart, Richard Long
Run Time: 1 Hour, 15 Minutes
YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/GZ5paTwRA_k
Synopsis
The film starts with a black screen and lots of screaming. I’d imagine if it were shown in a dark theater, it’d lead to a good jump or two.
Watson Pritchard introduces himself and explains that seven people have been murdered in his house. He fades out and Frederick Loren comes in, explaining that he rented the house so his wife Annabelle can give a “haunted house party.” If you can stay in the house for twelve hours, he’ll give us each $10,000 (which is worth about $90K today).
Just for laughs, Loren has the guests arrive in hearses. There’s Lance, a test pilot who needs the cash. Ruth writes a newspaper column and has a gambling problem. Watson Pritchard comes, because he needs the money. David is a psychiatrist working on hysteria. Nora is one or Frederick’s employees, and she needs the money. Credits roll.
The guests talk about Frederick, and none of them have met him. A chandelier nearly falls on Nora, and Frederick watches from above and smiles. Frederick and Annabelle quibble about the party, and he clearly likes to manipulate people. He doesn’t trust that she didn’t poison the champagne; He mentions that she’s tried it before. He wants a divorce, but she won’t allow it.
Watson pulls a knife and explains that the dead people’s heads were never found. He certainly winds up the group. There are supposed to be two loose heads floating around in the house somewhere. Watson warns Frederick to call off the party. The caretakers will leave at midnight and lock them all inside. There’s no phone or electricity.
Watson walks them through the house and explains where each murder took place. He shows them a big vat of acid in the basement where one man tried to dispose of his wife’s body. He throws in a conveniently placed dead rat and they watch it bubble and dissolve.
Nora is left alone in the basement and all the lights go out. She soon sees one of the ghosts, and old woman. Someone knocks out Lance the pilot. Nora sees the ghost again when they go back down there to look for secret doors. Lance laughs at her, which makes her angry.
Annabelle finally joins the party, and she’s mean and creepy to the guests as well. She’s very interested in what went on between Lance and Nora in the basement. She explains to Lance that her husband is planning something nefarious. He has big money and can get away with anything– his first three wives either disappeared or died.
As midnight approaches, Nora finds a head in her bedroom. We get to meet the caretaker and his blind wife, who is the old lady Nora saw in the basement. Are there really ghosts? Nora decides not to stay, but it’s too late; they’re all locked in now. Frederick gives each of the guests a loaded handgun in a little coffin box.
Lance finds the head in his closet. He confronts Watson, who has a knife and threatens to defend himself. As they argue, they hear a scream and find Annabelle hanging from a noose. David checks her pulse and pronounces her dead. “Suicide!” Says Frederick. Was it really? Watson says Annabelle has joined the ghosts now. Frederick looks surprised when the others point out that the was the only one with a motive for murder.
Nora watches a rope crawl in through her window, but then it goes back out again. She runs out of the room and finds Annabelle hanging again, and then she sees a big hairy arm reaching for her.
Dr. David goes to see Annabelle’s corpse, and he tells her that “every detail was perfect. We’ve almost done it!” She gets up and has him remove her from her hanging harness. These two have faked the whole thing. Their plan is to scare Nora into shooting Frederick.
Nora does in fact shoot Frederick in the basement. Then David opens the acid pit and then the lights go out. Annabelle comes downstairs and the doors start to open and close by themselves. She watches a skeleton rise up out of the acid and come towards her. It speaks to her in Frederick’s voice. She ends up falling into the acid pit.
We then see Frederick reel in the puppet-skeleton. He’s pushed both David and Annabelle into the acid pit. Frederick explains that he loaded her gun with blanks, and then he explains about the plot to kill him. Watson says to the camera, “Now there are nine. They’re coming for me now. Then they’ll come for you.”
Commentary
Money from 1959 or not, I’d spend the night in a haunted house for $10,000 right now. What they didn’t spend any money on was copyright lawyers; this film is now in the public domain and watchable for free on YouTube.
Elisha Cook as Watson Pritchard is the most awesome little doomsayer and negative-Nancy ever portrayed on film. Every single line he gets has a “we’re all gonna die!” Vibe to it. Vincent Price is surprisingly neutral here. He’s not particularly creepy, nor does he give off a particularly innocent vibe.
It’s an awfully convoluted plot on both sides. Why did David try to put Frederick’s body in the acid? They’d need a body to prove that he was dead, allowing Annabelle to inherit everything. With his body gone, he would have only been missing. Actually, everything involving the acid pit seems unnecessary to a good murder plot, but it did make the movie far more interesting. Who doesn’t wish they had a nice pool of acid hidden away somewhere?