Alucard's Bat-tastic Guide To Hallowe'en On Roku..... - Day #17 - SILVER SCREAM SATURDAY (Screen Three)

Welcome back, Boils & Ghouls...

... to 'Day Seventeen' of "Alucard's Bat-tastic Guide To Hallowe'en On Roku" and the third instalment of "Silver Scream Saturday" where, each week, I will recommend another horror movie classic which can be streamed to your television set(s) via the magic of Roku player !!

So if, like me, you plan to while away the hours during these dark autumnal evenings by watching a succession of Hallowe'en / Horror-themed movies to get into the (ahem) "spirit" of things, you should make a point of looking back through the posts I've made on this blog EVERY SATURDAY since the start of October for some absolute classics of creepy cinema to set the mood for the season !!

For my third effort, in this series of posts for "Silver Scream Saturday", I have decided to throw caution to the wind and recommend one of my favourite vintage horror movies for you to watch. This is one of those films that I've been shying away from, mostly based on how much I carped on about it during the 'Countdown To Halloween' 2013, but it's one of those classics which I keep going back to, time after time, as there's so much I love about it (including the movie posters!). So, if you'll forgive me this one moment of self-indulgence, I'd very much like to share the following film with you. It was released in 1959 as, "... the shiver & shake... quiver & quake picture of the year" and features an early monologue from Frederick Loren (Vincent Price) informing us that for this particular haunted house party, "there'll be food and drink, and... ghosts - and perhaps, even a few murders - you're all invited!", but, if that's not enough to whet your appetite, here's one of the movie posters I mentioned - to tempt you further:-

ORIGINAL USA POSTER.................IMAGE SOURCE: WrongSideOfTheArt.com

Directed by William Castle, and starring Vincent Price alongside Carol Ohmart and Richard Long plus Alan Marshal, Carolyn Craig, Elisha Cook Jr. with Julie Mitchum (amongst others), it tells the story of five people who have agreed to be locked in a large, spooky, rented house overnight with an eccentric millionaire & his wife for a "Haunted House" party... promising that, whoever stays the whole night, will earn themselves a $10,000 reward! Anyway, for those that have yet to see this "cult classic", full of ghosts, murderers & other terrors, here's a brief taster courtesy of the original film trailer:-

If you'd like to know more there's a full list of the cast & credits on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) listing for "House On Haunted Hill" (1959), FOUND HERE, which also includes a full storyline / plot summary as well as box office stats, technical specs & much more. For die-hard fans, there's even more information to be had on the Wikipedia Page for "House On Haunted Hill" (1959), VIA THIS LINK, which may help to fuel your appetite for another screening. Although, as with all of the other horror classics featured during this month-long Hallowe'en blogathon, if you're already a big fan of this movie you probably won't take too much persuading to watch it again !!

Anyway, once again, probably the best recommendation I can make as to which of the available Roku channels you could use to watch this film is to suggest "Dieselpunk Industries TV" as your port-of-call for this (and many other) classic horror film(s) because of the gargantuan effort the developer has put in over the years to compile such an extensive database of public domain movies which, thanks to this channel, are now readily available to stream via your Roku player(s) whenever you choose.

DIESELPUNK INDUSTRIES TV.......................................COST: FREE [Roku Guide Review]

If you haven't already got it in your channel selection, you can easily add it to your Roku player(s) using the recently introduced Roku 'Search' feature. Just start typing "Dieselpunk" into the text entry box within Roku 'Search' and it will soon appear in the results column on the right. In fact, you will (most likely) only have to enter the letters "d" and "i" before it pops up! For those who prefer to look it up the old-fashioned way, you'll find "Dieselpunk Industries TV" listed under the "Movies & TV" genre in the "Official" Roku UK Channel Store - itself, found by navigating to 'Streaming Channels' from the home screen and scrolling through the options - then click "OK" to access the full list of "Movies & TV" channels and scroll up (or down) until you see the channel icon (as per image above). The good news is... that "Dieselpunk Industries TV" is FREE-TO-ADD as well as FREE-TO-VIEW so, once you've located it in the list of channels, just click the "OK" button on your Roku remote to select it and then click "OK" again where it says 'Add channel' to install it on your Roku player(s). Having done that, it's simply a case of launching the channel via the 'Go to channel' option and navigating the on-screen menu to "Movies" > "Horror" > "House On Haunted Hill, The" then pressing "OK" to select and 'Play' the movie which, for the record, runs to 1h 14mins.

Meanwhile... here's a few more posters for "House On Haunted Hill" (1959), which movie-goers would have encountered at various times, from different locations around the world:-

ORIGINAL FRENCH POSTER............IMAGE SOURCE: WrongSideOfTheArt.com

ORIGINAL ITALIAN POSTER............IMAGE SOURCE: WrongSideOfTheArt.com

ALTERNATIVE USA POSTER............IMAGE SOURCE: WrongSideOfTheArt.com 

Before I sign-off, I'd just like to share a few short quotes from the movie... this time it's a brief exchange of words between Frederick Loren (Vincent Price) & his wife, Annabelle Loren (Carolyn Ohmart):-

Frederick Loren: Do you remember the fun we had when you poisoned me?

Annabelle Loren: [laughs] Something you ate, the doctor said.

Frederick Loren: Yes, arsenic on the rocks...

[grabs Annabelle]

Frederick Loren: Annabelle, you'd do it again if you thought you'd get away with it, wouldn't you?

Wickedly wonderful stuff, I'm sure you'll agree... but, to round-off this third "Silver Scream Saturday" on 'Day Seventeen' of the annual 'Countdown To Halloween' for 2015, let's lighten the mood a bit with a couple more of my FRIGHTENINGLY FUN FILM FACTS... for example, did you know that the story created for this film was loosely based upon / inspired by the Agatha Christie novel, "And Then There Were None", together with another novel, "The Haunting Of Hill House"?! Or that it was the success of this movie at the box office which, when noticed by Alfred Hitchcock, led him to create his own, low-budget, horror film... "Psycho" (1960)?! Or that it was the horrible noises used in the opening "scare trick" from this film which led to the first novelty "haunting" records of spooky sounds & music being recorded & pressed for use at parties during Hallowe'en?!

Anyway, that's all for today... but remember to come back in 24-hours for 'Day Eighteen', and more Horror / Hallowe'en-themed content, in "Alucard's Bat-tastic Guide To Hallowe'en On Roku" when I reveal the next "Shocking Sunday Surprise", and then to return EVERY DAY throughout the coming weeks, as we continue our "Countdown To Hallowe'en" 2015...

Fangs (as always) for reading !!