House on Haunted Hill (1959)

  The original House on Haunted Hill only bears a passing resemblance to its 1999 remake, so if you're expecting blood and gore, you will be disappointed.

Millionaire Frederick Loren (Vincent Price) and his beautiful wife Annabelle (Carol Ohmart) have rented the "House on Haunted Hill" for a dinner party.  Each invitee has been offered $10,000 to stay in the house overnight.  The owner, Mr. Pritchard (Elisha Cook, Jr.), is convinced the house is haunted by the spirits of at least seven people.  Right away, it seems the ghosts have targeted poor Nora Manning (Carolyn Craig), an employee of Loren's who was chosen because she desperately needs the money.  First, they try and drop a chandelier on her, then drag her off to various locations around the house.  Dr. Trent (Alan Marshal), a psychiatrist specializing in hysteria, thinks the girl is just overwrought, but when Annabelle Loren turns up murdered, everyone starts taking the phenomena seriously. 

Vincent Price is fantastic, as always.  The man knew horror.  Sadly, this is a very mediocre work made even more shabby by the passing of time.  The effects are almost non-existent and the constant screaming from the female leads got on my nerves.

I do wish that they had done more with the supernatural element.  It's not germane to the actual plot of the story at all, more of a red herring, but they take the time to have blood from a long-ago murder drip from the ceiling onto Mrs. Bridger's (Julie Mitchum) hand.  Pritchard makes a point of saying that the ghosts have 'marked' Mrs. Bridger as theirs.  You immediately forget about that thanks to Nora's histrionics, but the film goes back later and shows Mrs. Bridger again wiping the phantom blood off her hand in her room.  I think it would have raised this movie to a completely new level if they had resolved the murder mystery with no supernatural elements and then had Mrs. Bridger just disappear in all the commotion.