House on Haunted Hill
Overview
B movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
from Allied Artists. It was directed by William Castle
William Castle
William Castle was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. Castle was known for directing films with many gimmicks which were ambitiously promoted, despite being reasonably low budget B-movies....
, written by Robb White
Robb White
Robb White was a writer of screenplays, television scripts, and adventure novels; most of the latter had a maritime setting — often the Pacific Navy during World War II. White was best known for juvenile fiction, though he has proven popular with adults as well...
, and starring Vincent Price
Vincent Price
Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.-Early life and career:Price was born in St...
as eccentric millionaire Fredrick Loren. He and his fourth wife, Annabelle, have invited five people to the house for a "Haunted House" party. Whoever stays in the house for one night will earn $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
10,000 each. As the night progresses, all the guests are trapped inside the house with ghosts, murderers, and other terrors.
Exterior shots of the house were filmed at the historic Ennis House
Ennis House
The Ennis House is a residential dwelling in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA, south of Griffith Park. The home was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for Charles and Mabel Ennis in 1923, and built in 1924....
in Los Feliz, California.
House on Haunted Hill is the tale of five people invited to stay the night in a haunted house by an eccentric millionaire, Fredrick Loren (Vincent Price
Vincent Price
Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.-Early life and career:Price was born in St...
), who is throwing the "party" for his fourth wife, Annabelle (Carol Ohmart
Carol Ohmart
Armelia Carol Ohmart , better known as Carol Ohmart, is an American actress and beauty pageant title holder who appeared in B movies of the 1950s.-From pageants to Paramount:...
), with the stipulation that the power will be out and all doors will be locked at midnight, allowing no accessible escape.
