“When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in Black and white, you photograph their souls!”
-Ted Grant
Goddamn do i love a good black and white movie. shits beautiful yo
Rich oddball Frederick Loren (Vincent Price) has a proposal for five guests at a possibly haunted mansion: Show up, survive a night filled with scares and receive $10,000 each. The guest of honor is Loren's estranged wife, Annabelle, who, with her secret lover, Dr. Trent, has concocted her own scheme to scare Loren's associate, Nora Manning, into shooting the potentially crazy millionaire. But more spooks and shocks throw a wrench into the plan.
William Castle Used a gimmick called "Emergo" in theaters. When the skeleton rises from the acid vat in the film, a lighted plastic skeleton on a wire appeared from a black box next to the screen to swoop over the heads of the audience. The skeleton would then be pulled back into the box as the skeleton in the film is "reeled in". Many theaters soon stopped using this "effect" because when the local boys heard about it, they would bring slingshots to the theater; when the skeleton started its journey, they would pull out their slingshots and fire at it with stones, BBs, ball bearings and whatever else they could find. not only that, but the opening "Scare Trick" was so effective that it actually started the idea of novelty "haunting records". Records of spooky sounds, sound effects, and music that were most commonly used for Halloween, Halloween parties, and make-shift haunted house attractions.
so now that i got all my fun facts out of my system, lest chat about this grand daddy of the horror genre.
Considering how much fast paced crazy disturbing extreme horror movies i have seen, this one feels slow by comparison. What's important to understand going in is that this isn't a movie about a haunted house, it just happens to take place in one. Its more so about how 5 people from different backgrounds react to real ghosts. there is far more talking about ghosts then actual ghosts, and this movie is more so about solving the mystery surrounding the parties host. Probably isn't much of a shock to hear that Vincent Price and his wife are the most interesting part of this movie, and the movie does a good job of building mystery even when nothing is really happening.
Why would the host give every one a loaded gun? Why does the host insist this is his wife's party and not his own? Are the ghosts real or is the whole thing some elaborate joke? why do this whole thing in the first place? Is anyone of the party guests in on the joke somehow? if your able to really care about these characters this movie would have a lot going for it. the ending is 100% worth waiting for, and it has a lot of great spooky bits before the final act.
but i just cant get myself invested in this movie. i can however, respect the hell out of it. in no way would i call this a bad movie, just not my kind of jam.
but god damn is that black and white directing beautiful.
7/10
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