House on Haunted Hill

House on Haunted Hill is the tale of five people invited to stay the night in a haunted house by an eccentric millionaire, Fredrick Loren, who is throwing the "party" for his fourth wife, Annabelle, with the stipulation that the power will be out and all doors will be locked at midnight, allowing no accessible escape. Anyone who stays in the house for the entire night, given that they are still alive, will each receive $10,000.

The five guests all arrive in hearses, which he explains may be empty now, but they may be in need of them later. He explains the rules of the party and gives each of the guests a gun for protection. Loren's wife tries to warn the guests that her husband is psychotic, causing them to be very suspicious of him, especially Nora Manning, who becomes convinced that he's trying to kill her when she keeps seeing mysterious ghouls, including the ghost of Annabelle, who had hanged herself after being forced to attend the party.

After being driven into a fit of hysteria by the ghosts haunting her, Nora shoots Mr. Loren, assuming he is going to kill her. Dr. Trent, another guest, tries to get rid of the body by pushing it into acid, but the lights go out, and when they come back on, both of the men are gone. Annabelle emerges, having faked her death with the help of Dr. Trent, and having successfully tricked Nora into killing Loren. Suddenly, the skeleton of Loren emerges from the acid, approaching Annabelle and mourning how she's killed him. In a panic, a screaming Annabelle accidentally backs into the acid herself. The real Mr. Loren walk out of the shadow, holding the pully that he was using to control the skeleton with, and watching Annabelle disintegrate.

Nora tells the other guests that she's shot Loren in the cellar, and they all rush down there. When they arrive, they see that he's actually alive, and he explains to him that his wife and Dr. Trent were having an affair, and they'd planned to trick Nora into murdering him so that they could get away with his money. Unfortunately for them, he had not loaded the guns with bullets, but powder, and he had not been killed. Just when everyone thinks the trauma is finally over, Mr. Pritchard, the house owner, looks up, a terrified expression on his face, and announces that the ghosts are finally coming for them.