March 26, 2016

People forget that Vincent Price was cast as a heartthrob in the excellent 1940's film noir, Laura, but most of us remember him for his horror movies.

One of his bigger hits was a William Castle production called 'House on Haunted Hill.' Castle was an incredible promoter and came up wth some whacky ideas to get people into the movie theaters, but it was this film that influenced Alfred Hitchcock to make Psycho.

The film is perhaps best known for a famous promotional gimmick used in the film's original theatrical release called "Emergo." In some theaters that showed the film, William Castle placed an elaborate pulley system in the theater itself, which allowed a plastic skeleton to be flown over the audience at the appropriate time.[2] 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 in part 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).[3]

The reason I picked this feature tonight was because when I was about four years old, I saw this movie in a darkened apartment by myself (my parents were next door) and when Leona Anderson popped out, it scared the hell out of me for the first time in my life.

But instead of recoiling from scary movies after it, I became a huge fan of them.

What does that say about me?

UPDATE: Please add to this thread, what your scariest moment at a movie was...

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