If an eccentric millionaire were to offer you a large sum of money to you spend a night in a haunted house, you might think to yourself, "How did I wind up in an episode of Scooby Doo? Or perhaps a Simpson's Halloween special? Or any one of the countless other TV shows or movies that have employed this hackneyed plot device?"

But every cliche has its origins somewhere, and House on Haunted Hill may be the very first movie where a random assortment of guests are summoned to a haunted house. In this case, the haunted house just happens to reside in the Haunted Hill district of town, and it's presided over by a ghoulish master of ceremonies played by Vincent Price. Murder, mayhem and clumsy romance ensue. Fortunately, three of the guests at this party are Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett of RiffTrax.com and Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame, on hand to heckle the House on Haunted Hill!

Vincent Price has one of his juiciest roles in this haunted-house thriller as millionaire playboy Frederick Loren, who invites five guests out to a genuine haunted house, offering them each $10,000 if they spend the night. Elisha Cook Jr. plays one of the guests, a nervous alcoholic who has been in this house before and witnessed some terrible things. Mr. Loren's beautiful but treacherous wife (Carol Ohmart) is also present--and might be out to kill Frederick during the course of the evening; then again, he might be out to kill her. Severed heads, a skeleton, an acid vat, ghostly screams, and a noose that creeps around on its own and strangles unsuspecting victims are just some of the treats in a film that has been spooking delighted audiences on late-night TV for decades. Producer-director William Castle (THE TINGLER) claimed this was filmed in a process called Emergo, which meant that at a key moment a glow-in-the-dark skeleton on a wire was rigged to sail over the audience's heads. The skeleton is long since gone, but the goofy thrills remain in this classic tale, from a script by Robb White.