Movie Review: House on Haunted Hill (1999)

House on Haunted Hill

J&M Entertainment, Dark Castle Entertainment, Warner Bros., USA, 1999.

This is a remake of the 1959 film "House on Haunted Hill."

In 1931 Los Angeles patients of Vannacutt Psychiatric Institute for the Criminally Insane butcher the doctors and the hospital burns. After the fire it was revealed that Dr. Richard Benjamin Vannacutt (Jeffrey Combs from "Re-Animator") was mad surgeon who mutilated patients. Only five of the sadistic staff survived.

Dr. Vannacutt

Now the house is restored (quite lazily because most of the original interiors and equipment are still in their original places). Eccentric amusement park millionaire Stephen H. Price's (Geoffrey Rush) wife Evelyn Stockard-Price (Famke Janssen) wants to keep a birthday party there. Stephen destroys the guest list and creates his own list. The haunted house gets the same idea and invites some strangers. Those who spend a night in the house and survive will get $1000000.

Stephen H. Price and Evelyn Stockard-Price

Jennifer Jenzen

Melissa Margaret Marr

House owner Watson Pritchett (Chris Kattan) introduces the house to contestants. The other guests are Donald W. Blackburn, M.D. (Peter Gallagher), former TV celebrity Melissa Margaret Marr (Bridgette Wilson), ex-baseball player Eddie Baker (Taye Diggs), Executive VP Jennifer Jenzen (Ali Larter). As in the 1959 version, the doors are locked and everyone is given a gun in a small coffin.

Donald W. Blackburn

Eddie Baker

Chris Kattan

Stephen and Technician Carl Schecter (Max Perlich) have arranged all kind of scares for the guests but the ghosts of the house put on their own show. So far so good. Soon someone begins to murder the guests. Is it a trick or are the murders real?

Carl Schecter

Gun coffins

The original "House on Haunted Hill" relied on the spooky atmosphere with couple of well placed scares. Also Vincent Price's charisma helped to make small-scale chiller entertaining. Geoffrey Rush does quite good Vincent Price imitation.

The other haunted house movie "Haunting" was released the same year. Both of them went overboard with CGI effects. I would say that the greatest difference is that "House on Haunted Hill" is gorier than "Haunting." This one begins well but turns into teen-horror style shock CGI-circus. Still it is not a remake of the worst possible kind.

Rating: Average

Starring: Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Taye Diggs, Peter Gallagher, Chris Kattan, Ali Larter, Bridgette Wilson-Sampras, Max Perlich, Jeffrey Combs, Dick Beebe, Slavitza Jovan, Lisa Loeb, James Marsters, Jeannette Lewis, Janet Tracy Keijser, Peter Graves, Marc Blucas, Carrie Lauren, Geneieve Leilyn, Sheila Lussier, Debi Mazar, Frank Murgia, Greg Nicotero

Director: William Malone