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Title:
House On Haunted Hill
Region:
One
Genre:
Horror
Stars:
Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart, Richard Long, and Elisha Cook
Director:
William Castle
Feature
length: 75 minutes
Extras:
Audio Commentary With MST3K’s Mike Nelson, Theatrical Trailers, Press Book,
Web Link, Legend Colorization Demo
Languages:
English Two-Channel Monaural Sound
Subtitles:
English Closed Captions
Packaging:
Amaray Keep Case
Chapter
Stops: 12 For Black And White Version/13 For Colorized Version
Sound:
Two-Channel Monaural Sound
Year
of Theatrical Release: 1958/DVD Release: 2005
Theatrical
Distributor: Allied Artists Pictures
Home
Video Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment
MPAA
Rating: Not Rated
Reviewer:
Mark A. Rivera
One
of the better known of William Castle’s gimmick-laden b-movies from the late
1950s, “House On Haunted Hill” will not likely interest anyone younger than
25 unless they are either a film buff or somehow have fond memory associated
with the film. The picture actually has a cult following of sorts from adults
who remember seeing it when it first was released in theaters as well as those
who might have caught it on television in their youth back when there was no
cable or satellite television and syndicated stations would broadcast monster
movies on a Saturday night like “Chiller” and so forth. Vincent Price is the
strongest element in the film and his presence elevates it a bit above the low
budget scares and silly action. The story of an eccentric millionaire inviting a
select number of guests to stay in his haunted mansion for a 10,000 prize
provided they survive until the morning was remade into a creepy horror feature
through Dark Castle Entertainment and Warner Brothers, which seems to revisit
these films once a year or so with a remake. The most recent was the 2005
version of “House Of Wax.” The hook for this DVD release is that the film
has been completely digitally remastered and colorized for the first time and
down converted to DVD from a new high definition source print. The result is
consumers get both an outstanding black and white version of the film and an
amazing 2005 colorized version of the film on the same dual layered disc. Both
versions are presented in the full frame (1.33:1) theatrical release aspect
ratio with a clear though somewhat louder than normal English Two-Channel
Monaural Soundtrack. English Closed Captions for the hearing impaired are also
encoded onto the dual layered DVD as an option.
The
patterns of the clothing and ghastly gurgling acid pool come off fantastic in
color, but like I noted last year when I reviewed Fox’s colorized DVD release
of “Night Of The Living Dead,” the technology still has not been able to
render believable human skin tones and depending on the condition of the source
materials used as well as the very nature of the film, the colorization looks
better on some films than it does on others. Mystery Science Theater 3000 Star
and Writer Mike Nelson provides a hilarious feature length audio commentary for
the film that is better than his commentary for last year’s “Night Of The
Living Dead” simply because he seems to have more to joke about here and never
tries to editorialize the commentary with facts about the film. This commentary
is the closest to “Mystery Science Theater 3000” in approach by Nelson that
I have listened so far outside of the show, which is distributed on DVD by Rhino
Home Video. The only fact Nelson reveals in the beginning of the commentary is
that this is his first commentary for a William Castle film, which kind of
surprised me considering the many seasons “Mystery Science Theater 3000”
aired on television and before he took center stage, he was the Head Writer for
the show.
One
can hear Mike’s voice when they choose the Special Features choice in the
interactive menus, which are completely animated with three-dimensional
transitions throughout the house for the various menu selections and also
feature full motion scene selections and the voice of Vincent Price from the
film on the main menu. The interactive menus for this DVD are all easy to
navigate too. In addition to Mike Nelson’s audio commentary, the DVD features
a web link to www.legendfilms.net, a
demo of the colorization results done by the company (2:57), complete with clips
from “The Mark Of Zorro”, “Heidi”, “My Man Godfrey”, “The Jackie
Robinson Story”, “Carnival Of Souls”, “Sherlock Holmes And The Secret
Weapon”, and “The Three Stooges In Color.” A motion still gallery of press
book images from “House On Haunted Hill” and trailers for colorized versions
of “Carnival Of Souls” (2:28), “Night Of The Living Dead” (1:09), “The
Three Stooges In Color” (1:06) and “Reefer Madness” (2:04) are also
included. The scene from the “Reefer Madness” trailer where a character
exclaims, “Bring me some reefer!” is just laugh out loud funny in the
context in which it is presented in the trailer. Both the black and a colorized
version of the trailer for “House On Haunted Hill” (1:41) each, wraps up the
bonus features on this DVD.
Collectively,
I think this DVD release of “House On Haunted Hill” is a home run and well
worth checking out now that it’s available at retailers on and offline
courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.
©
Copyright 2005 By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.
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