Terror filled Mondays.

Today’s movie is one of my all-time favorites! Growing up, I know this was a movie I saw more than once and with good reason because it was just that good - or at least it was to me at the time.

Written by Robb White, and starring Vincent Price as eccentric millionaire Fredrick Loren. Loren and his fourth wife, Annabelle, have invited five people to the house for a “Haunted House” party. Whoever stays in the house for one night will earn ten thousand dollars. As the night progresses, all the guests are trapped inside the house with ghosts, murderers, and other terrors.

I think this was the first movie I can remember Vincent Price making a big impression on me although at the point Price appeared in HoHH he was already well-established in Hollywood. I would always delight later on in seeing Price early on in the classic Laura. Speaking of which if you haven’t seen Laura you should seek it out.

Among the cast in the original House on Haunted Hill, was a very young Richard Long. Long was better known to me at the time as the dad on Nanny and the Professor (where he shared screen time with Paris Hilton’s aunt Kim Richards who played his daughter). Consequently, Long popping up in a horror movie was a little incongruous with the image I had of him at the time.

Better still, the cast was rounded out by the immortal Elisha Cook Jr. At this point, you might be saying ELISHA WHO!?!?

Cook may be better remembered as Sydney Greenstreet’s lackey Wilmer in the defining film noir flick The Maltese Falcon or even from his recurring role on Magnum PI in the eighties. Cook had a long career in both television and film usually playing tough guys or bad guys.

Today’s entry into Terror filled Mondays is even more special because not only can I offer up the movie poster but, if you have the time (and the bandwidth), you can actually the film I’ve been talking about - click through for one of William Castle’s best - The House on Haunted Hill: