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{{quote| I am Frederick Loren, and I have rented the house on haunted hill tonight so that my wife can give a party. A haunted house party. She's so amusing. There'll be food and drink and ghosts, and perhaps even a few murders. You're all invited. If any of you will spend the next twelve hours in this house, I will give you each ten thousand dollars, or your next of kin in case you don't survive. Ah, but here come our other guests.}}
 
''[[House On Haunted Hill (Film)|House Onon Haunted Hill]]'' (1959) is a [[B-Movie|low budget]] [[Horror]] [[Film]] directed by William Castle, regarding five people who have been invited to stay the night in a haunted castle. Frederick Loren ([[Vincent Price]]), an eccentric millionaire, is throwing his "party" for his fourth wife, Annabelle, with the stipulation that the power will be out and all doors will be locked at midnight, [[Closed Circle|allowing no accessible escape]]. Anyone who survives the night in the castle will be awarded $10,000. As the night progresses, however, it becomes clear that this is no game by the host - the partygoers are indeed trapped here with malevolent ghosts, murderers, and other terrors.
 
== The Remake ==
''[[House On Haunted Hill (Film)|House Onon Haunted Hill]]'' was [[The Remake|remade]] in 1999, directed by William Malone and starring [[Mystery Men|Geoffrey Rush]], [[How Stella Got Her Groove Back|Taye Diggs]], [[Ali Larter]], and [[Jeffrey Combs]]. The setting for the fateful party is moved to an [[Abandoned Hospital|abandoned mental hospital]], the Vannacutt Psychiatric Institute for the Criminally Insane, said to be haunted by the malevolent ghosts of the murderous inmates. The head of the facility, Dr. Richard B. Vannacutt, performed grotesque experiments on his patients, killing many in the process. The hospital was only closed when a handful of inmates escaped, killing almost the entire staff and setting fire to the facility, while security gates trapped everyone inside.
 
Fast forward to the present, where amusement park mogul Stephen [[Mythology Gag|Price]] is leasing this facility for the Halloween party of his spoiled trophy wife Evelyn. The five invitees are given a similar challenge as in the original movie, only the pot has been upped to $1,000,000 for any survivors, plus the winnings of any who do not survive having their earnings added to those of any remaining survivors. Soon after the party begins, the security gates are tripped, and the partygoers are trapped inside the facility with the insane spirits haunting the facility - including not only all the inmates, but also Vannacutt himself.
 
The remake marked the debut of Dark Castle Entertainment, which went on to produce ''[[Thirteen13 Ghosts|Thir13en Ghosts]]'' and ''[[House of Wax]]'', both also remakes of William Castle movies. It was followed by a sequel, ''Return to House on Haunted Hill'', in 2007.
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=== The original contains examples of: ===
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* [[The Bluebeard]]: Loren is on his fourth wife. The first one disappeared, and the second two died of heart attacks, despite being in their 20s. {{spoiler|The fourth one is scared to death during the course of the party. She was a [[Gold Digger]] planning to murder Loren for his money, however, casting an unsavory light on the intentions of the first three.}}
** In retrospect however {{spoiler|We can't be sure that his first three wives did die under such mysterious circumstances, since the person who described them was trying to create an alibi for Loren's eventual demise.}}
* [[Character Asas Himself]]: The skeleton is credited as "by itself".
* [[Colliding Criminal Conspiracies]]
* [[Closed Circle]]
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* [[Prophet Eyes]]: Mrs. Slydes.
* [[Screaming Woman]]: Nora Manning. {{spoiler|Justified in that Annabelle's plan is entirely reliant on keeping Nora on edge the whole time.}}
* [[Taking You Withwith Me]] / [[Ghostly Goals]]: {{spoiler|Subverted as part of Frederick's scheme.}}
{{quote| But you're not going to live to enjoy it!}}
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* [[Chair Reveal]]
* [[Closed Circle]]: This starts out apparently engineered, until it becomes quite clear that the sanitarium is calling the shots.
* [[Creepy Basement]]: [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin]].
* [[Death Byby Genre Savviness]]: Pritchard.
* [[Doomed Defeatist]]: Pritchard.
* [[Enclosed Space]]
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