Tuesday Terrors - House on Haunted Hill (1959) - starring Vincent Price

"The ghosts are moving tonight. Restless. Hungry."

Doors that open and close themselves! Guests arriving in a funeral procession lead by a hearse! A falling Chandelier! Blood dripping from the ceiling! A witch that appears and disappears! 7 people already murdered! Detached Heads! Party favors that turn out to be loaded guns delivered in coffins! An organ that plays itself! The floating head of Elisha Cook Jr.! Ghosts! Dead bodies that disappear and reappear! Thunderstorms! Secret passages! Ropes that wrap themselves around the damsel's feet! A wine vat filled with acid! A floating skeleton! And an elegant host (played by the ever-charming Vincent Price) who may be trying to kill his wife (who may, in turn, be trying to kill him)! It's obvious that producer and director William Castle was trying to throw everything into the pot on this one.

In 1959, William Castle had made a number of b-grade pictures for various studios, but he was just beginninng to emerge as the king of the gimmick picture. His legacy today is as the man who, while he may not have invented the style, certainly perfected it and used it to bring amazing attention to his pictures. Some of Castle's gimmicks included insuring movie goers in case they died of fright during a showing of Macabre; "Percepto", in which audience members watching The Tingler, already encouraged to scream because the titular monster had gotten loose in the theater, recieved mild electric jolts from wires attatched to their seats; Illusion-o, which gave brave audience members a chance to see 13 Ghosts while those who were too fearful didn't have to; and the "Fright Break" in Homicidal which gave audience members a chance to leave the theater and get a full refund before the climax if they were willing to sign a certificate of cowardicee In the midst of this came House on Haunted Hill which, through the magic of "Emergo" had a skeleton come out of the movie and float over the heads of the audience. (Don't ruin the surprise by telling your friends, but it was actually an inflatable glow-in-the-dark skeleton that was pulled through the theater on a set of wires.)

In the film, Vincent Price plays Fredrick Loren, a millionaire who is hosting a party for his fourth wife. Instead of inviting their friends, however, he has invited five guests who represent different layers of society. He has offered each of them $10,000 if they will spend the whole night in the House on Haunted hill, a house with a history of killings and hauntings. However, soon after they arrive, spooky things begin happening including all of the events listed above. Adding to the intrigue is the relationship between Loren and his wife, neither of whom like the other very much and they both have good reasons for wanting the other dead. The guests soon find that they are completely locked in the house, and there is no way out until the caretakers return in the morning. The haunted house may soon become their tomb and by morning may well have seven new ghostly residents!

Yes, the film is cheesy and some of the efffects are obviously lacking, but for a good low budget scare that is definitely highlighted by the presence of Mr. Price, you can definitely find worse ways to pass an hour and fifteen minutes. And it's certainly more fun than the perhaps technically more proficient but heartless 1999 remake.

Preview time! Here's the Trailer:



And here's the skinny:

Title: House on Haunted Hill
Release Date: 1959
Running Time: 75 min
Black and White
Starring: Vincent Price
Director: William Castle
Producers: William Castle, Robb White
Distributed by: Allied Artists

House on Haunted Hill is available for viewing or download here.
It's available on DVD at Amazon in many different packages, but this version contains both a nicely restored B/W version and a pretty well accepted colorized version: House on Haunted Hill (Color + B&W).
It's also available for rental from Netflix: House on Haunted Hill

Until next time, Happy Treasure Hunting,
-Professor Damian

Tuesday Terrors - The Last Man on Earth (1964) starring Vincent Price

Hello?! Is there anyone out there? Oh, thank goodness. For a moment I was afraid that there was no one left but me and Richard Morgan. (Morgan! Morgan! Come out Morgan!) Who's Richard Morgan, you ask? Why he's the character played by Vincent Price in today's feature. He's The Last Man on Earth.

In 1964, Italian director Ubaldo Ragona and American Sidney Salkow set out to adapt Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend
 to the big screen. Hiring Matheson himself to write the screenplay (though he eventually decided he was disappointed with the outcome and had the credit changed to "Logan Swanson") and Vincent Price to star, the duo felt they had a sure-fire hit on their hands. Unfortunately, the film was hampered by an obviously low budget and some of the Italian actors were very badly dubbed, and it wasn't until later years that the film came to be seen as anything more than a minor Price effort. Now, however, it has a 73% positive rating at Rotten Tomatoes, and is considered by many to be the best of the three major adaptations of the novel. The other two being the 1971 Charleton Heston starring The Omega Man, and 2007's Will Smith actioner I Am Legend .

Set in the then-near-future time of 1968, Price stars as Dr. Richard Morgan, the last survivor of a plague that has turned most of humanity into near-zombie like vampires. Since the plague hit, Morgan now finds himself spending each day making wooden stakes, hunting the vampires, and burning them in a communal pit. Each night is a torment to be endured as he tries to keep the continually persistent vampires from breaking into his home, which has become his last refuge.

Morgan, as played by Price, becomes a very sympathetic figure as we learn that he has not only lost his daughter to the plague, but he has had to put a stake through the heart of his wife who returned as one of the vampires after he could not bear to throw into the fire pits when she, too, succumbed to the disease.

When he finally encounters another living human, a woman, who seems to also be immune to the disease, Morgan is at first elated, but his joy soon turns to suspicion and then fear as he learns that she is hiding a dark secret. Will she be the key to helping him resurrect humanity, or will she be the final nail in the coffin of the last true man?

As you can perhaps tell from the above, this is a movie that i like a great deal. Yes, the budget was minimal, but it simply forced all involved to come up with more creative solutions to the presentation. Plus, Price injects a great amount of humanity into a role that would in lesser hands be very flat. We not only hear the increasing desperation of the character in the voice-over narration that guides us through the film, but we see it on his face to an extent that becomes almost palpable.

So, again we have to ask, how did a movie from 1964 starring one of terror-dom's greats come into the public domain. Again, the answer is simple. Before the law was changed so that everything that is produced is automatically copyrighted, a notice of copyright had to be filed, and that was never done. Therefore, automatic Public Domain.

And here's the trailer:



Ok, the skinny:
Title: The Last Man on Earth
Release Date: 1964
Running Time: 86 min.
Stars: Vincent Price
Directors: Ubaldo Ragona, Sidney Salkow
Producers: Robert L. Lippert, Samuel Z. Arkoff, Harold E. Knox
Distributed by: American International Pictures

You can watch the entire movie for free by clicking here.
Or, you can purchase this movie (along with another fun post-apocalyptic thriller) from Amazon by clicking here: Panic in Year Zero/The Last Man on Earth.
The DVD is also available from Netflix:Panic in Year Zero / The Last Man on Earth

Until next time, Happy Treasure Hunting
-Professor Damian