House on Haunted Hill wasn't the ONLY influence on Psycho..but it was one of them, and frankly I think it was the main one.
The proof we have is from Psycho screenwriter Joe Stefano, who said that early in his meetings with Hitchcock, the great director said "Have you seen House on Haunted Hill? I want to do something like that."
While another big influence of Hitchcock with Psycho was "Diabolique" (1955), that was a French film, a "foreign film with subtitles" somewhat of an art film, and not really the kind of "fun event gimmick film" that Castle was selling to young American audiences.
Elsewhere others have said that Hitchcock felt that Psycho could be "a William Castle movie made with more intelligence, and a better script. (And, I might add, a bigger budget and longer shooting schedule."
William Castle made some other horror movies around this time -- Macabre and The Tingler. But House on Haunted Hill "fits" Psycho -- hell, Psycho could be CALLED "House on Haunted Hill," yes?
In the 1960 summer of Psycho's release, William Castles "shocker for pre-teens" was 13 Ghosts. One year later, after having seen Psycho, Castle made his homage to it: Homicidal (which was back to being the kind of fun but dumb movie Hitchcock was talking about.)
Evidently, pre-teens showed up(dropped off by their parents) for Psycho but had no idea of how high up Hitchcock was going to take the shocks and blood and terror. Teenagers AND adults also came and Hitchcock got his biggest hit.
With a very "upscale" gimmick indeed: "No one, but NO ONE , will be admitted to Psycho after the film begins." Not quite tinglers in the movie seats...or a floating skeleton in the auditorium(the HOHH gimmick)...but it worked!
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jasonbourne (1027)
4 years ago
Oh yeah. Now it hit me that you did talk about it before when you mentioned Diabolique. HOHH looks low budget because William Castle is like Roger Corman and known for such movies. What's weird is the outside of the house didn't match the inside decor. Definitely an interesting exterior and looks like a millionaire's house atop the hill. The house on the movie poster seemed to fit it better. Maybe Hitch put the Psycho house on a hill because of it. It does give the occupants a good look of their motel as well as the people below able to see the house's windows clearly.
Similarities have to do with large sums of money. One being offered to party guest who were invited while the other is tempted to take advantage of a situation that presents itself. Both stories are believable and have beautiful blondes in the movie, but one is selfish, greedy, adulterous, and murderous. The other is a middle class working girl who has met a man she wants to marry, but he's got money problems due to his divorce. The greedy Annabelle pretends to commit suicide which seems hard to do unless she is somewhat athletic or had help. What seemed weird was if she wasn't dead and a "ghost," then how did she get outside when it was impossible to? I suppose it's okay because it's supposed to be a campy ghost movie.
Both have screaming blondes in them, too. Psycho had two, Marion and Lila, while HOHH had a blonde and brunette. Marion is hands down winner of best screamer with her shower scene. She may be one of the best screamers in the history of movies.
Did you see HOHH in a theater? And got the skeleton on a wire lol?
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ecarle (14979)
4 years ago
Oh yeah. Now it hit me that you did talk about it before when you mentioned Diabolique.
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Yes, those seem to REALLY be the two influences that brought Hitchcock to Psycho.
Diabolique came first and put Hitchcock "on the look out" for shocker material. He bought the next book from the authors of Diabolique -- but it became the lush and haunting Technicolor Vertigo(its hard to see Vertigo in black and white trying to be Psycho -- no can do.)
House on Haunted Hill was one of a "swarm" of low budget black and white horror movies from the late fifties. Rogert Corman made them , too -- but those were a bit more "SciFi. I think that William Castle's movies anticipated Psycho in two ways: (1) Macabre and The Tingler were set in small town America, with "regular people" beset with something horrific going on -- and some murderous characters afoot; (2) HOHH went "full Gothic" and Haunted House(in Los Angeles, not in a small town) but it, too, sounded in noir lovers-kill-the-husband murder mystery stuff. There was a middle-aged adult plausibility to what Castle produced -- even if the audience was kids.
I might add that I believe that Diabolique wasn't as much of an American hit as HOHH -- it played in art houses and a lotta folks won't read subtitles. But Diabolique played in LA and NYC and Hitchcock was very aware of its impact with critics -- he had to compete.
And its funny how Robert Bloch's novel "Psycho" arrived out of nowhere and "was what Hitchcock was looking for." Though it was a gory read, on the page, "Psycho" the novel READ like a William Castle movie -- small town America("Fairvale") with horrible secrets nearby; criminal types amidst the regular people, a creepy old mansion and a seedy old motel...Plus that shower murder(and the equally scary killing of the detective later.)
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ecarle (14979)
4 years ago
I always figured that Hitchcock saw in Psycho the book what he gave us in Psycho the movie: an atmospheric tale, with an incredibly powerful setting(the house and motel) but all in service of one main thing: the shower murder. A slaughter more than a murder, and so beyond the usual "Agatha Christie niceties" of the body in the study that audiences would never forget it. (Nor -- again -- the even more screamable jump cut killing of Arbogast.)
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ecarle (14979)
4 years ago
HOHH looks low budget because William Castle is like Roger Corman and known for such movies.
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I did a "budget check" on HOHH, and it was made for $200,000, 1958 dollars. The "low budget" Psycho cost $800,000...and really SHOULD have cost over a million except Hitchcock waived his $250,000 salary, Perkins dropped his $150,000 asking price to $40,000, and everybody else worked dirt cheap. In any event, Psycho cost about four times HOHH in the budget -- which allowed Hitchcock to BUILD the Psycho house(from other sets) rather than just filming an existing house, like HOHH.
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What's weird is the outside of the house didn't match the inside decor.
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Hah. True -- though I think after awhile one just gets used to it...its not that major a discrepancy.
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Definitely an interesting exterior and looks like a millionaire's house atop the hill.
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It is a real house -- a rather Aztec style modern stone mansion - located in the Los Feliz area that "becomes" the Hollywood hills(lots of movie/TV people live around there, like Quentin Tarantino.)
I always like, during the opening credit sequence, the shot where the doctor looks out over the lights of the San Fernando Valley at night -- the "flip side" of the view of Hollywood. We're reminded of the "carpet of lights tha has always been the Hollywood hills -- and here, how an evil mansion could be part of that scene.
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The house on the movie poster seemed to fit it better.
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Some creative license. When I was a boy in Los Angeles in 1962, House on Haunted Hill premiered on local TV on a Saturday night. That poster -- with the skeleton and the severed head and the hanged woman -- became a full page ad in TV Guide -- and those were some pretty scary visuals to see as a child of one digit in age.
It was GREAT. A terrifying introduction to horror..a memory that has never gone away.
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ecarle (14979)
4 years ago
Maybe Hitch put the Psycho house on a hill because of it.
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Its very possible. One "problem" with Bloch's novel is that while the motel and house are described, and you can imagine them, you obviously can't SEE them juxtaposed and ominous as Hitchcock managed to do this in the movie.
I contend again: Psycho has the greatest setting for a horror movie in history: the creepy house on the hill AND the creepy motel below it. Think of how often modern posters and book covers show the two TOGETHER. And the movie "works them separately." One murder at the motel(in a shower). One murder in the house(on a staircase.) Its a film of incredible "balance of elements."
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It does give the occupants a good look of their motel as well as the people below able to see the house's windows clearly.
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Two nifty "paired shots": (1) Early on, Mother gliding across the window, from Marion's POV, (2) Much later in daylight, Norman's POV FROM the window, of Sam and Lila down below next to the motel. (Hitchcock got Norman's POV by having a camera crane take the camera up to the window and back point down at the motel; there is a photo of Hitchocck directing this shot in the later "Hitchcock/Truffaut" revised edition.
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ecarle (14979)
4 years ago
Similarities have to do with large sums of money. One being offered to party guest who were invited while the other is tempted to take advantage of a situation that presents itself.
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It is interesting how often in movies, "the greatest MacGuffin is cash." $10,000 per "surviving guest" in HOHH; the forty grand Marion embezzles from a gross rich man in Psycho. The cash controls the people...the sad "power of money" is evident(HOHH has a young woman who works as a secretary for the rich Vincent Price but desperately needs the money to support her impoverished family...Price's loose change can changeher life. But then also, there's a woman after the 10K to pay gambling debts.)
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Both stories are believable
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Indeed. No vampires, werewolves or monsters. Elisha Cook's magnificently freaked-out homeowner in HOHH keeps ranting on about the ghosts in the house -- but we never see any ghosts; all the killings are done by regular humans.
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and have beautiful blondes in the movie, but one is selfish, greedy, adulterous, and murderous.
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The casting of the beautiful babe in a B movie like HOHH is interesting to me. Hazel Court has the figure for the statuesque beauty(Price's hated and adulterous trophy wife), but she doesn't quite have the FACE for the part. A mean comment, I know, but we watch these actors closely. Ms. Court never made it to "the major leagues" where the real beauties were in Hollywood.
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ecarle (14979)
4 years ago
The other is a middle class working girl who has met a man she wants to marry, but he's got money problems due to his divorce.
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I suppose Marion tracks more with the "young female lead" in HOHH..both are playing struggling secretaries who work for men with more wealth than they can possibly spend. The "class issues" of America(and the world) are put into relief. Some have the money; others work to serve them.
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The greedy Annabelle pretends to commit suicide which seems hard to do unless she is somewhat athletic or had help. What seemed weird was if she wasn't dead and a "ghost," then how did she get outside when it was impossible to? I suppose it's okay because it's supposed to be a campy ghost movie.
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You are here hitting on the fact that plot-wise, House on Haunted Hill isn't very careful about its plotting(as Hitchcock in Psycho would be), and that things get a bit silly as it goes along. Annabelle DID have help(we learn), but other aspects of the plot just don't work when you think about them too long. That's OK.
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ecarle (14979)
4 years ago
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There is a scene in HOHH which made me jump in single digits, but its just a laugh now: the young heroine, alone in a locked room, turns and suddenly there's an ugly old woman with her hands up and we all jump and scream, and then there is a hilarious cut to a wide shot of the woman "rolling out of the room" as if on roller skates. The first shot is a jump cut but kind of silly; the secondthe woman rolling away) is downright stupid(a William Castle weakness in the cilnch.)
What Hitchcock did was to take this "jump scare" up to eleven. Again, an ugly old woman(we imagine; we can't see her fact) suddenly appears and the audience jumps and screams...but THIS time, the woman has a big KNIFE, and she keeps coming at her victim(a detective), slashes his face, knocks him down a staircase and brutally finishes him off. Its as if the "old lady jump cut" in HOHH was just "knocking on the door" of horror. Hitchcock dares to go right through that door -- when censors weren't supposed to allow it -- and made shock history.
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ecarle (14979)
4 years ago
Both have screaming blondes in them, too. Psycho had two, Marion and Lila, while HOHH had a blonde and brunette. Marion is hands down winner of best screamer with her shower scene. She may be one of the best screamers in the history of movies.
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A true "scream queen." That said, the younger brunette woman in HOHH rather screams and screeches on a continual, irritating basis.
But...Janet Leigh was more of a trained professional, and gave her emotional all not only to Marion's big screams on first seeing Mother with the knife...but then the pleas, groans, gasps, and sighs of a woman slowing dying under the knife.
One funny thought about the actual MAKING of Psycho. They must have had "scream day" at the Universal sound recording studios. I can picture Janet Leigh coming in to do the "full array" of screams and other utterances(like "NO!") into a microphone. Then I can picture Vera Miles coming to do her hysterical screaming upon first seeing Mother's REAL face in the fruit cellar. And then Marty Balsam came in to offer up his single "end of the murder" deep male guttural scream of terror. Probably multiple takes for all the players -- I'll bet Balsam had to try out maybe five different versions of his "single shot."
And reportedly actress Jeanette Nolan(John McIntire's wife) came in to do some screams, too. "Just in case."
That said, I have read that Hitchcock himself did a radio ad for "North by Northwest" where he directed Eva Marie Saint in her big scream in NXNW(When Valerian the Knifeman jumps on Cary Grant on Rushmore).
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ecarle (14979)
4 years ago
Did you see HOHH in a theater? And got the skeleton on a wire lol?
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Ha. No. I'm old...but not that old. The only time I saw HOHH on the big screen was about a decade ago, at my local multiplex, accompanied by those "Mystery Science" guys on a separate track making fun of the movie as it went along.
Its funny. In the early 60s, my family only had one TV , in the living room. Myself and other young ones could see SOME of the horror movies that were on in the afternoon, when the "big people" were doing something else. But House on Haunted Hill and other "Saturday Night Horrors" were on in prime time and I didn't control the TV.
So I'd troop on down to my friend's house and we'd sit in his treehouse and he'd TELL me the story of the horror movies I was missing. It was "internet chat" before its time.
I remember that kid being very amused by the line Vincent Price utters to his hated wife early in the film: "Remember that time you tried to poison me on my birthday?"
I tell ya, little kids can be pretty sophisticated. Don't underestimate them.
Eventually, we had a second TV and I caught up with House on Haunted Hill and other movies, but I was getting older and they never really scared me. Still, I liked old time cheapo horror for its look and its FEEL, and its nostalgia. Right now, its October 2020 -- Halloween time -- and Amazon Prime is streaming just about ALL of those movies. I've sampled a few(
Attack of the Crab Monsters; Earth vs The Spider) with a knowing smile -- how long ago those movies actually ate up a LOT of local TV time.
PS. There's a great documentary about William Castle where the filmmaker John Waters notes that HE saw HOHH with the skeleton coming out -- and all the kids fired slingshot rocks at it until it fell down.
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jasonbourne (1027)
4 years ago
>>Indeed. No vampires, werewolves or monsters. Elisha Cook's magnificently freaked-out homeowner in HOHH keeps ranting on about the ghosts in the house -- but we never see any ghosts; all the killings are done by regular humans.<<
Elisha Cook's acting creeped me out especially his talking head at the beginning. He thinks there are ghosts in the house from childhood because his brother and others were murdered there. He's the type who believes in ghosts. However, his guests seem to know more about the house than he.
>>The casting of the beautiful babe in a B movie like HOHH is interesting to me. Hazel Court has the figure for the statuesque beauty(Price's hated and adulterous trophy wife), but she doesn't quite have the FACE for the part. A mean comment, I know, but we watch these actors closely. Ms. Court never made it to "the major leagues" where the real beauties were in Hollywood.<<
Hazel probably didn't make the major leagues because of her acting. She had the sexy looks and body, but her screen time was limited. There was that weird champagne bottle gun scene and she casted Mr. Price aside with her looking off in the distance and snide comments. Maybe Vincent Price ad libbed that scene by shaking the champagne bottle and airming it at her. In the next moment, nothing happens when he opens the bottle.
>>A true "scream queen." That said, the younger brunette woman in HOHH rather screams and screeches on a continual, irritating basis.<<
She basically screamed throughout the movie probably as cue for the audience to scream. The best one was with the caretaker woman when she appeared out of nowhere and she skated off into another room. Those were a couple of crazy, bizarre William Castle scenes. It worked for his movie for screams and laughs.
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jasonbourne (1027)
4 years ago
I've read about the shower murder in the book. It's a throwaway murder as "Bloch took only 2 1/2 sentences to describe the killing, which ends with Norman lopping off Marion’s head." This sounds more gore and grotesque as well as shocking. How do we bring that to the screen? I think most of us would just play it straight and try to capture the shock of the moment.
The one public fight I saw leading to a stabbing and killing was at a dance and while the fight lasted for minutes and even went up to the stage and knocked over some of the band members, it was the knife that was pulled out and stabbing took very short time. The fight was over after that. What was shocking was all the blood that poured out onto the stage and then onto the floor. The suspect was long gone after it.
Hitchcock was onto another world. He wanted to do it impressionistically. He thought the shower scene was the key scene in the movie. I don't know if you've seen 72/58 which is a documentary about the shower scene. It's very interesting and shows not only how the impressionism was achieved, but what was behind it. This impressionism is also shown in other Hitchcock scenes.
https://www.dispatch.com/entertainmentlife/20171029/5-little-known-facts-about-psycho-shower-scene
It goes to mention that a little kid who's been allowed to watch HOHH and those other Mystery Science Theater 3000 or Creature Features movies were not allowed to see Psycho. With my generation, I think it was The Exorcist that scared us out of our wits as well as scarred us for life. They even had a refrigerated theater to chill us as we watched. I don't think I've seen it again during Halloween season.
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