House on Haunted Hill (Audio Commentary)

Film Year:  1959
Genre:  Horror
Director:  William Castle
Starring:  Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart, Elisha Hook, Carolyn Craig, Alan Marshal, Julie Mitchum, Richard Long
Commentator:  Michael J. Nelson

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

Vincent Price is at his Vincent Price-iest in this tale of the horror master throwing a spooky birthday party for his reclusive wife.  They invite guests that they have never met before for...reasons, I guess...and offer them a large sum of money if they're able to spend the night without getting murdered (maniacal laugh implied here).  But there seems to be weird things going bump in the night.  Is the house really haunted, is Price fucking with them, or is there something else at play?

Or if you're feeling clever do all three.  Be forewarned that if you decide to do so chances are you're not as clever as you think you are.

House on Haunted Hill seems to be a favorite among golden oldie horror aficionados like myself, but I've never particularly cared for it.  Price is an astounding screen presence that adds a lot to the film, this can't be denied, but it's so damn stupid.  The premise of the film is quite solid, though the plot is convoluted and messy.  Once revelations start piling up one after another the movie just stops trying to make sense and just twists itself for the hell of it.

I've also never been one of those people who looked at an old horror movie and laughed with disbelief that anybody in history could ever be frightened by it, as I always contextualize my film-going.  House on Haunted Hill is an exception, because it's scares are so stale and silly that even if I had seen it in 1958 I couldn't imagine myself being frightened by it.  Occasionally there will be a cool shot of otherworldly haunting, such as Carol Ohmart's scenes of being strung up in a noose, but these are few and far between.

But regardless of how silly I think this film is there is one thing I can always say in it's favor:  It's nowhere near as bad as the 1999 remake.

The Commentary

As par for the course on Legend Films colorized DVDs, Michael J. Nelson is back to give these discs some flavor.  He opens by pointing out he and his MST cohorts have never riffed a William Castle film, and given his schlocky but popular catalog there's certainly a lot to play with there.  Being Castle's most popular film, House on Haunted Hill might be as good a place as any to get cracking on.

Mike embraces the macabre of the film, relishing Vincent Price and his seemingly sensual love of all things involving death.  Mike takes the opportunity to get as dark as Price, dropping gags based on poison, guns, nooses, and various other death techniques.

The film's loopy characters also come under fire.  Our creepy little character actor in Elisha Cook is given appropriate riffs for his neurotic performance, including calling him a leprechaun, which has somewhat carried over into every time this film was riffed on Rifftrax.  Richard Long's Lance character gives him great material with his libido and clumsiness, while Carolyn Craig's Nora gets some laughs as being both a victim to the haunted house and Lance's sexual advances.

One great thing about reliving these commentaries after all these years is that since these commentaries eventually evolved into Rifftrax you can definitely hear jokes that lasted in the various future riffs this film received, up to the Live version in 2010.  House on Haunted Hill has quite a few of these that have been repeated word for word elsewhere.  They were funny then and they're funny now, even if Mike has no back-up commentators with this particular release.

Good

The DVD

This disc is brought to us by Legend Films, mostly as a demo of their colorization process, which is about standard for Legend's colorization.  Inanimate objects often look good, as if they had always been colored (the wet pavement in the opening scene is actually impressively real looking), though flesh tones look waxy and awkward.  I'm also not too impressed with the color on the titular house itself, which for the most part almost looks like it's still in black and white.  I'm not sure if this was a stylistic choice, a realism choice, or a minimalist choice, but most scenes outside the house look ugly.  Otherwise House on Haunted Hill is given a pretty crisp color master and good audio.  The black and white version of the film is included as a special feature.

There's also a press book, which gives us two and a half minutes of promo material for the film.  Also included are a trailer to the film, both black and white and colorized.  Trailers for other colorized Legend releases are included:  Carnival of Souls, Night of the Living Dead, Reefer Madness, and The Three Stooges in Color.