 
A
wicked man named Frederick Loren (Vincent
Price) invited five strangers to a big
lifetime party at his mansion and
offering them $1,000 dollars each if they
stay the night at the house.
Everyone is excited but they all realise
it's a house that has a reputation for
murders and madness and Frederick offers
them a gun each for protection plus some
of the people experience some hauntings
as well and it is driving them all mad
wondering what to do as their life party
is turning into a disaster.
William Castle makes this piece nicely with the camera
settings inside the house as well wioth
the actors assoicating with one another
doen in a stage or radio type of
direction.
We spot a good intro involving both
Watson Pritchard and later
on Frederick Loren telling the
tale of what's going to happen as it
gives the film a Twilight Zone type of feel to it.
We spot a real effective conversation
sequence between Frederick and Annabelle Loren pouring champagne for each
other discussing some poisoning to the
people coming to the mansion.
We see a great shot on supporting actress Mrs. Slydes with her wide
eyed ghostly looks in the cellar towards Nora Manning yet
it looks phony when this figure floats away and it looks like it was
already planned too.
Nora and Annabelle work off
perfect towards one another when they
introduce themselves and Annabelle herself has a soft but wickedly type of attitude
when she warns her about certain places
in the house.
Watson Pritchard
looked good sitting in a
chair pointing a kitchen knife towards Lance Schroeder acting scared and disturbed by
what is going on.
One of the scariest scene's was when
the camera shoots down on Nora pacing in her room and the lights go out
with thunder and lightning occurring and
then we see a rope crawling through some
window bars wrapping around her legs and
a ghostly Annabelle appears from
behind the barred window.
Also there's a perfect shot on Annabelle hung in the hallway and Nora falls back by a half closed door
screaming and then a monstrous hand from
behind her tries to grab her.
Bottom line is that it's a nicely set old
fashioned B&W horror film as it
almost really works but alot of the times
it's confusing to understand and a
disappointment when the unsolved
mysteries are revealed. Still it's a classic and inspired a
remake but it's hard to understand if
this is a haunted house movie or not.
The acting is
fairly good as we have a great
performance by Vincent Price (Frederick Logan) as
an evil, stern and abusive caretaker of
the mansion. He always performed well
with these types of parts. He really showed a good stern attitude
towards his fellow actress by grabbing her
shoulders warning her to never poison
him.
Carolyn Craig (Nora Manning) really stands out well
with her freaked out atttitude and really
knows how to scream during the terrifying
events but she sometimes overly does it. In a scene she screams and reacts well
at being terrified about an incident. She showed a great grossed out
reaction to her after opening her
suitcase spotting a decapitated head and
running away.
Elisha Cook Jr. (Watson Pritchard) was another noted
character as he had a perfect tense
attitude to his role.
Carol Ohmart (Annabelle Loren) knew how to speak
smoothly and behave mysterious to her
part and can seem evil like in some ways. She reacts greatly towards when someone grabs the back of her hair and forcing
her to come to the party event that is
happening in the house as it was a nice
and tense abusive reaction. A moment she really lacks was when she is in the wine cellar room and a skeleton
rises from a pool of acid creeping up on
her as she doesn't react as frightened as
she was supposed to be.
Von Dexter was
wonderful with the chilling organ music
and the trumpet playing for the film
making it spooky and adventurous too. |
