House on Haunted Hill (1959)

Wealthy Frederick Loren and his wife Annabelle Loren - she the fourth Mrs. Loren, the first three who died mysterious deaths - have rented the purportedly haunted family home of Watson Pritchard, who claims seven family members were murdered there, to host a haunted house party. While Annabelle is acting as the reluctant front, the party is being organized by Frederick, including coming up with the guest list comprised solely of five people he has never met, but who know of him only through reputation. The hook for them to attend is that he will give a total of $50,000 equally to the surviving members of the party, the stipulation, which they are not aware of until their arrival, being that they will be locked in the house for twelve hours with no way out, including no means of communication to the outside world, until the return of the caretakers at the end of those twelve hours. While some state professional reasons for attending, all five, openly or secretly, are being lured primarily by the money, which each does need. The five seemingly willing invitees, who also do not know each other, are: Watson Pritchard himself, who truly believes that the ghosts of his murdered family members haunt the house, and who are there to bring others to their side of the dead; test pilot Lance Schroeder; columnist Ruth Bridges; psychiatrist Dr. David Trent; and secretary Nora Manning, who actually works for one of the Loren companies. The question then becomes why Frederick and/or Annabelle are organizing this party; in other words: what their end goal is, including why these five.