House on Haunted Hill (1999)

Welcome to the House on Haunted Hill where the host pays you to stay! There'll be no valets no mints on pillows. But each guest receives a needed bonus: a tiny coffin with a gun inside. In William Castle's 1959 mix of fright and fun Vincent Price plays the macabre host offering $10000 to guests who survive the night. The going rate is $1000000 in the effects-filled Dark Castle Entertainment 1999 remake. Geoffrey Rush portrays the twisted big shot who throws a birthday bash for his wife (Famke Janssen) at an abandoned insane asylum. Taye Diggs Ali Larter Bridgette Wilson Peter Gallagher and Chris Kattan play strangers invited to the get-rich-quick event. Party on dudes!Running Time: 168 min.System Requirements:Run Time: 168 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR Rating: R UPC: 012569731196 Manufacturer No: 73119 Product Description

Haunted houses

They say remakes are horrible, and "they" are usually right. The poster child for unnecessary Hollywood remaking is "House on Haunted Hill," remade from a Vincent Price cult hit of the same name.

In the case of the "House on Haunted Hill" two-pack, viewers can see a prime example. One of the movies is a dark, witty, well-acted horror-mystery with a nice twist at the finale, and the second is trashy, plotless, and hasn't got a single surprise in the mix. Only half of it is worth having.

In the original, Frederick Loren (Vincent Price) decides to host a macabre birthday party for his devious wife Annabelle (Carol Ohmart), in the "House on Haunted Hill." He invites a test pilot, a columnist, a secretary and the house's unbalanced owner, and offers each one ten thousand dollars if they stay all night. Chandeliers fall, eerie people appear, doors slam shut, and they get little guns in coffins.

But as the night goes on, poor Nora Manning (Carolyn Craig) begins to see specters and rotted heads. The others think she's hysterical -- until Annabelle is found hanging in the hallway, dead. The unfortunate guests start to suspect that Loren brought them there to murder them (except for the owner, who blames ghosts). But the truth is far more complex and sinister.

William Castle made some middling movies in his time, but he was truly inspired with "House on Haunted Hill" -- good casting, good sets, low budget and kitchy scares. Unfortunately, whoever made the remake ignored every single thing that made the original good.

An oddball millionaire (Geoffrey Rush) invites several people to an old lunatic asylum, which is said to be haunted -- if they make it through the night, they will each receive a million dollars. They think it's an easy way to make fast cash, and that the gruesome stories of torture and death are just to mess with their heads.

But, of course, ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump in the night begin to surface, and the guests start to suspect that they may not survive until morning. Especially since the millionaire and his cunning wife (Famke Janssen) may have murder on their minds. Will anyone escape the house alive?

An eccentric millionaire, murderous wife and supposedly cursed house are about all these movies have in common; it's as though the people doing the remake simply read a spoiler-free summary of the original, and based the entire film around it.

Castle's has understated scares, a giant Victorian-furnished house, eerie artificial visions and no ghosts whatsoever -- the real spooks in the house are the human ones. The plot is a remarkably clever one; by the finale, it has tricked you at least twice with plot twists that are not what they seem. Plenty of witty one-liners that will stick in your mind, too -- "Don't stay up thinking of ways to get rid of me. It makes wrinkles."

Don't expect that high quality in the remake -- appallingly cliched, plotless, and full of buckets of blood and deformed ghosts. It's also got some of the worst scripting in recent memory, such such pearls of wisdom as, "The house doesn't care what's fair, who lives or dies. Know why? Cause it's a f**king HOUSE!"

The original movie has amazing acting from the immortal Price, the sleek Carol Ohmart, and the screamy Carolyn Craig; even the unimportant characters are handled well. In comparison, the remake's cast is forgettable and show no signs of talent, with two exceptions: Geoffrey Rush doing his best to fill Price's enormous shoes, and Famke Jansson as his poisonous wife, who has "always loved... your money!"

This two-pack basically contains the perfect example of a remake gone wrong, and a magnificent movie that inspired it. The sublime and the ridiculous. September 2, 2006

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