Style
The theatrical trailer promoted the film as The House on Haunted Hill, although all advertising material and the title on the film itself were simply titled House on Haunted Hill. The film is best known for a famous promotional gimmick used in the film's original theatrical release called "Emergo": William Castle placed an elaborate pulley system in some theaters showing the film which allowed a plastic skeleton to be flown over the audience at the appropriate time. In August and September 2010, the Film Forum in New York City had a revival of the film (along with several other Castle pictures) that included the original gimmicks. This was the first time since the late 1980s Film Forum had done this.
Thanks to Castle's gimmickry, the film was a huge success. Alfred Hitchcock took notice of the low-budget film's performance at the box office, and set out to make his own low-budget horror film, which became the critically acclaimed hit Psycho (1960). Castle was himself a Hitchcock fan, and would try to imitate Hitchcock's work in later films such as Homicidal (1961).
Read more about this topic: House On Haunted Hill
Famous quotes containing the word style:
“To me style is just the outside of content, and content the inside of style, like the outside and the inside of the human body—both go together, they can’t be separated.”
—Jean-Luc Godard (b. 1930)
“Carlyle must undoubtedly plead guilty to the charge of mannerism. He not only has his vein, but his peculiar manner of working it. He has a style which can be imitated, and sometimes is an imitator of himself.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“His style is eminently colloquial, and no wonder it is strange to meet with in a book. It is not literary or classical; it has not the music of poetry, nor the pomp of philosophy, but the rhythms and cadences of conversation endlessly repeated.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)