| Review | House on Haunted Hill (1999) | Director | William Malone |
|---|---|
| Writers | Robb White and Dick Beebe |
| Cast | Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Taye Diggs, Ali Larter, Peter Gallagher, Chris Kattan, Bridgette Wilson, Max Perlich, Lisa Loeb, James Marsters and Jeffrey Combs |
“From here on it gets really scary” – Price
From the late 90’s and well into the 2000’s a number of old horror favourites got upgraded with varying degrees of success. Legendary characters like Leatherface, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers were rebooted and older films such as “House of Wax” (1953) and the two William Castle directed “House on Haunted Hill” (1959) and “13 Ghosts” (1960) received an upgrade. The quality here ranges from pretty dire to very good and I’ve always liked “House on Haunted Hill” quite a bit.
Married couple Stephen Price (Rush) and Evelyn (Janssen) have a toxic relationship. Once Evelyn sees that a supposedly haunted place that was once a famous psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane is available for rent she decides she wants to have her birthday party there. That’s no problem for millionaire Price, a designer of theme park rides, and he proceeds to invite a chosen few for attendance. But some sinister forces change the guest list and invite former ball player Eddie (Diggs), Dr. Blackburn (Gallagher), assistant Sara (Larter) and celebrity-wannabe Melissa (Wilson). A reluctant Pritchett (Kattan), the heir to the house, gets stuck there as well when all doors close and windows are blocked. Price informs the guests that they will receive a sum of 1.000.000 dollars if they survive the night.
This film starts off great and maintains one heck of a creepy atmosphere while also providing decent jump scares, bloody and suspenseful set-pieces and a nice sense of humor. The eerie opening displays some unsettling imagery of the Vannacutt Psychiatric Institute for the Criminally Insane in operation in 1931. We witness the sadistic Kurt Vannacott (Combs) in action just before the inmates rebel against the staff and everyone subsequently perishes in a fire. In present time we’re introduced to theme park mogul Price (the name a nice touch!) as he proceeds to scare the living daylights out of reporter and cameraman Loeb and Marsters. Two really good scenes that show a film capable of creepy mood building and tongue and cheek set-pieces.
We’re then gradually introduced to the rest of the characters as they enter the supposedly haunted house. It’s in this setup that most of the similarity with the original film takes place but soon it heads in a new direction. The whole million dollar gimmick and giving the guests guns really makes no sense as Price’s intentions (or Evelyn’s for that matter) are never clear as to how they were going to entertain their guests. But you just roll with it!
It soon becomes abundantly clear that the house is haunted…and seriously pissed off. Creepy scenes of Vannacutt roaming the rooms and even still operating on patients (seriously; this is pulled off really well) and characters possibly becoming possessed build a foreboding atmosphere that’s well maintained for the first 80 or so minutes and there’s some grisly grue on display as well when a few meet their demise.
The script is fine with the happenings in the house and although most of these characters are fairly unmemorable they all skate by. Giving this a prologue set in a psychiatric hospital certainly gave the filmmakers ample opportunity for arresting visuals and that came to fruition. The mystery here is really why were these guests invited and the script comes up with a suitable explanation for it. Also, there’s a semblance of a side plot concerning Evelyn and one of the guests and that’s played out fairly well. The pacing here is really good, too.
The acting is more than solid. Rush has a field day in his maniacal role as Price and Janssen is a good match as his conniving wife. There are scenes here that fairly humanize Price and give him a notch beyond his one-dimensional appearance and a quality actor like Rush really nails it. Diggs, Larter, Wilson and Gallagher are all fine and I really like Kattan here. His character is quite annoying but Kattan has a way of delivering his lines and generally being pretty unpleasant in a fun way. I suppose this is the kind of performance you either dig or not at all. Combs really has limited screen time here but he is effective when he rears his head.
But, unfortunately, the final reel is a letdown. This is quite common; really good build-up and sustained for the longest time only to fumble in the end. When all explanations are in and the sinister forces go for broke the audience is in for a dated CGI fest that’s really unsuspenseful and underwhelming. It’s a crying shame since everything up ‘til then worked like a charm.
But overall; this is a damn fine fright flick. Sure, it’s denouement fizzles out but that doesn’t undo what most of the film does really well.
Physical Copy
My copy of “House on Haunted Hill” is the region A Collector’s Edition Blu-ray issued by Scream Factory in 2018. A/V quality is good and there’s a healthy selection of special features here; best of which I though were a recent interview with director Malone and a selection of deleted scenes. It’s fun to go through these deleted scenes as they do feature actress Debi Mazar and more of Jeffrey Combs but they were wisely left out.
Why physical copy?
I always encourage the acquisition of physical copies as I dread the day when films will only exist as files on computers and through streaming services. The companies that put the effort into making the discs, create new artwork or reproduce the originals, issue booklets and much more deserve all the financial support they can. Therefore I will always mention the Blu-rays or DVD’s (and yes; also if I review something streamed through Netflix or the like) even though I gain nothing from it personally.
