House on Haunted Hill (1959) product reviews

"There'll be food and drink and ghosts, and perhaps even a few murders. You're all invited." Recently the kids and I have been watching some of the old classics and this was my mothers choice, most recently. House on Haunted Hill follows a group of people, hoping to gain $10,000 each, for lasting the night in the haunted building, of course not everything is as it seems... This was the kids first introduction to the wonderful Vincent Price, and I love that all you need is to hear his voice to know who it is. This film is classified as a horror film, but given its age I knew that it would be ok for the whole family to watch.

While the special effects and acting don't quite stand up to time (there were times we laughed, when the original audiences most certainly would not have been) it's still a film that stands up. As none of us has seen the film before, we were pulled into the mystery happening and flipped between who we thought we the instigators, a few times. If you keep an eye on the end credits, you will notice that the skeleton is listed "As Himself", this is because they used a real skeleton on set as getting one made would have been too expensive for the time.

Despite the fact that there were no real scares for any of us, in this horror film, we still all enjoyed it and the kids have asked if there are more we can find to watch (particularly my youngest who glad they didn't find it scary at all).