Tag: Elisha J Cook

House On Haunted Hill (1959)

I received a 9-Movie boxset of Vincent Price movies one Christmas and slowly intend to work through them all. First, William Castle’s low budget hit House On Haunted Hill (1959) where a millionaire bets five strangers to stay the night in a haunted house for $10,000 each. This was a lot of fun. Even when the special effects were hokey, I loved it, and it still had some effective spooky moments and satisfying twists (though an abrupt ending). Price is awesome, just a charmingly debonair and sinister presence that keeps everything cooking. Classic character actor Elisha J. Cook is worth his weight in gold as the continual harbinger of doom. Recommended.

The Haunted Palace (1963)

In The Haunted Palace (1963), Vincent Price gets to play a sinister warlock burned to death by angry townsfolk in the opening scene – and 100 years later, a distant blood relative who moves to the town with his wife on account of inheriting the Warlock’s palace. Braving the cursed, suspicious townsfolk (check out the town pub name: Burning Man Tavern), Price starts to become possessed by the warlock whenever he stares too long at a painting of him. Directed by Roger Corman as one of his Edgar Allan Poe adaptations (though more based on an HP Lovecraft story), this was better than House Of Usher, but still not as entertaining as House On Haunted Hill. Co-stars Debra Paget, Lon Chaney Jnr, and the ever reliable Elisha J. Cook. Ronald Stein’s score was great, classical gothic foreboding (reminded me of Danny Elfman’s ‘March of the Dead’ from Army Of Darkness).