Synopsis

Eccentric millionaire Frederick Loren invites five strangers to spend the night in a supposedly haunted mansion, offering each guest $10,000 for surviving until morning. The house has a grisly history of murder, and Loren's elaborate scares soon blur the line between staged tricks and genuine danger. As suspicion spreads among the guests, hidden motives and deadly schemes emerge before the night is over.

Factoids & Trivia

• William Castle promoted the film with "Emergo," a gimmick in which a glowing skeleton was rigged to fly over the theater audience during a key moment.

• The mansion exteriors were filmed at Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis House in Los Angeles, a location later associated with several other productions.

• The film's closing credits include the unusual entry "Skeleton by Himself."

• Vincent Price's participation helped cement his reputation as a major horror star. He and Castle followed the film with another collaboration, The Tingler (1959).

• The film was remade in 1999, with the later version adding a much stronger supernatural element.

• House on Haunted Hill remains one of Castle's best-known examples of combining low-budget horror with theatrical showmanship.