10/14: House on Haunted Hill

This sucker should catch me up. Sunday's film:

10/14

For today's film I went old school, back to 1959 for the haunted house film House on Haunted Hill. A group of people are dared to stay the night in haunted house by an eccentric millionaire and in return they will receive $10,000. Fear and murder ensues as the group tries to make it through the night. Badabing badaboom.

I always love going back and seeing where the roots of modern horror came from and House on Haunted Hill is an impressive study into the origins of the haunted house film. The movie is stereotypical before the haunted house tropes were a thing, which means it set a lot of those tropes up. It's amazing too that the movie, despite being nearly 60 years old, manages to pack some terror on what must have been a shoestring budget. Take a pretty blatantly shown hanging and it's surprising what the film got away with. The marks of this film can definitely be seen on Psycho as well, which came out a year later and Hitchcock was purportedly inspired by. A gruesome hanging inspires the blood and terror of Norman Bates.

House on Haunted Hill is a great example of an older horror movie that still manages to hold up. Sure, some of it is dated and campy, but that just adds to the charm. It's moody and atmospheric and Vincent Price should narrate my whole life. Just saying. The man is creepy and awesome.

8/10