The Halloween Diary:Spooky Houses
Turner Classics showed a bunch of "house" related films Friday night, and I was just getting to them today as Universal was on the agenda for the first three days.
Besides my one sole 70s viewing last night of Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things, it has been all Universal occupying the recent.
I won't dwell too much on House on Haunted Hill & The Haunting because they are just reviewed and analyzed to death. I have reviewed both on here in the past.
I watched them this year with my kids so that was cool.
House on Haunted Hill has its share of delish hokey goodies. You've watched this film. You know what they are. The skeleton out of acid. The little coffins for the hand guns. The "rope suicide". The creepy caretakers that keep Nora screaming. The severed head in the suitcase. The shared barbs between Price and Ohmart, both of who really like to stab with sharp words dedicated to get under each others skin. Elisha Cook, Jr. telling us at the beginning (well his head anyway) about the Haunted Hill House with all the deepest sincerity. Then Price laying out (well his head anyway) who will be staying there and what the prize would be for doing so. The chandelier falls. Blood drips on the hand of a gambler (Julie Mitchum) needing money to support her habit from a pool of a ceiling where a body was killed on the floor above it. Ohmart's "apparition" appears to Nora to once again cause her scream. Nora screams, and screams, and screams. There's even an acid bath. Cook drinks and drinks while warning everyone of the death that lives within the walls of the house. Carolyn Craig and those pipes alone are put to significant use. Richard Long (jet pilot Lance) gets clunked on the head and tries to keep Craig's Nora from murder. Alan Marshall (psychiatrist Dr. Trent) always the skeptic practical man defying the talk of ghosts.
It was interesting to see this and then the sophisticated and chilling The Haunting after it. Julie Harris talking off to herself, and narratively telling us she's a fragile spinster in need of a life worth living. The Hill House wants her to stay within its walls, however. She's losing herself in it.
Bloom's psychic, with an assertive, clinging, and needlingly-pointed-wit towards Harris, can often sense exactly how people feel and speak it out much to the aggravation of those around her (mainly Harris who just isn't emotionally able to take much of her targeted humor which hits too close for home). Richard Johnson and his English mastery of speech and enthusiastic conversation about the paranormal. Johnson is a history wiz, quite scholarly and polite. He's an attentive ear to Harris who needs one. Then of course the young, money-conscious Russ Tamblyn who will inherit the Hill House once his aunt croaks. Assembled is a group with fun chemistry and their differing worlds do interact and collide on occasion. Bloom being a lesbian, with it carefully acknowledged but not bluntly. Her attachment to Harris has always fascinated me. How she expressively conveys dislike for Harris and Johnson's attraction to each other. How Harris shrugs off Bloom's advances, subtle or not. Johnson having to shoo away his own attachment to Harris. Harris' vulnerability and hurt quite susceptible to the house and its powers.
This for me is truly great every time Wise photographs the Hill House to get it at its most sinister. Inside and out, its eccentricities, personality, elaborate decor, and gloomily purveying darkness give October a sacred place always for Hill House.
Besides my one sole 70s viewing last night of Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things, it has been all Universal occupying the recent.
I won't dwell too much on House on Haunted Hill & The Haunting because they are just reviewed and analyzed to death. I have reviewed both on here in the past.
I watched them this year with my kids so that was cool.
House on Haunted Hill has its share of delish hokey goodies. You've watched this film. You know what they are. The skeleton out of acid. The little coffins for the hand guns. The "rope suicide". The creepy caretakers that keep Nora screaming. The severed head in the suitcase. The shared barbs between Price and Ohmart, both of who really like to stab with sharp words dedicated to get under each others skin. Elisha Cook, Jr. telling us at the beginning (well his head anyway) about the Haunted Hill House with all the deepest sincerity. Then Price laying out (well his head anyway) who will be staying there and what the prize would be for doing so. The chandelier falls. Blood drips on the hand of a gambler (Julie Mitchum) needing money to support her habit from a pool of a ceiling where a body was killed on the floor above it. Ohmart's "apparition" appears to Nora to once again cause her scream. Nora screams, and screams, and screams. There's even an acid bath. Cook drinks and drinks while warning everyone of the death that lives within the walls of the house. Carolyn Craig and those pipes alone are put to significant use. Richard Long (jet pilot Lance) gets clunked on the head and tries to keep Craig's Nora from murder. Alan Marshall (psychiatrist Dr. Trent) always the skeptic practical man defying the talk of ghosts.
It was interesting to see this and then the sophisticated and chilling The Haunting after it. Julie Harris talking off to herself, and narratively telling us she's a fragile spinster in need of a life worth living. The Hill House wants her to stay within its walls, however. She's losing herself in it.
Bloom's psychic, with an assertive, clinging, and needlingly-pointed-wit towards Harris, can often sense exactly how people feel and speak it out much to the aggravation of those around her (mainly Harris who just isn't emotionally able to take much of her targeted humor which hits too close for home). Richard Johnson and his English mastery of speech and enthusiastic conversation about the paranormal. Johnson is a history wiz, quite scholarly and polite. He's an attentive ear to Harris who needs one. Then of course the young, money-conscious Russ Tamblyn who will inherit the Hill House once his aunt croaks. Assembled is a group with fun chemistry and their differing worlds do interact and collide on occasion. Bloom being a lesbian, with it carefully acknowledged but not bluntly. Her attachment to Harris has always fascinated me. How she expressively conveys dislike for Harris and Johnson's attraction to each other. How Harris shrugs off Bloom's advances, subtle or not. Johnson having to shoo away his own attachment to Harris. Harris' vulnerability and hurt quite susceptible to the house and its powers.
This for me is truly great every time Wise photographs the Hill House to get it at its most sinister. Inside and out, its eccentricities, personality, elaborate decor, and gloomily purveying darkness give October a sacred place always for Hill House.
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