Starring: Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Taye Diggs, Peter Gallagher, Chris Kattan Directed By: William Malone Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: DVD Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: April 18, 2000 Running Time: 93 minutes Studio: Warner Home Video Theatrical Release Date: 1999
Product Description: Guests are invited to spend the night in a haunted house and whoever remains, alive, the next day gets a $1,000,000 prize. Item Type: DVD Movie Item Rating: R Street Date: 09/06/05 Wide Screen: yes Director Cut: no Special Edition: no Language: ENGLISH Foreign Film: no Subtitles: no Dubbed: no Full Frame: no Re-Release: no Packaging: Sleeve
Amazon.com: House on Haunted Hill is one of the new breed of waste-no-time thrill machines, like Deep Blue Sea, and a particularly effective example at that. The plot is pure contrivance: For a party stunt, a wealthy amusement-park manufacturer (Geoffrey Rush) offers five people a million dollars if they spend the night in a former insane asylum where the patients murdered the sadistic staff. But it turns out the five people who arrive aren't the five he invited--did his wife (Famke Janssen), who hates him, make the switch? From there events unfold with a smart combination of human and supernatural machinations; spooky jolts are dispensed at regular, but not entirely predictable, intervals. The visual effects owe a considerable debt to Jacob's Ladder, a much more ambitious movie; House on Haunted Hill just wants to get under your skin, and succeeds more than you'd expect. Rush is his entertainingly hammy self; Janssen, Taye Diggs, Ali Larter, and Bridgette Wilson are attractive and reasonably straight-faced about it all; and Chris Kattan is genuinely funny as the house's neurotic owner. Some elements of the plot seem to have been lost in the editing process, but it hardly matters. More bothersome is that the scares go flat when computer effects take over at the end--the digital images just aren't as creepy as the more suggestive stuff that came before. But that's just the very end; most of the movie has a lot of momentum. Watch until the end of the credits for a final bit of eeriness. --Bret Fetzer
Can't out beat Vincent Price ^ This is pretty good for a remake, but you can't out beat the master of Horror movie acting, thats right i'm talking about Mr. Vincent Price. but i still love this movie and so will you. I recommend this movie for everyone
Much Better Than Expected ^ When I first saw "House on Haunted Hill" I have to admit I thought it was really good. Maybe because I had just finished watching the snooze-fest that was "The Haunting" remake that my expectations were pretty low for another ghostie re-tread like "House on Haunted Hill", but I thought that this low-budget William Castle update was scarier and had more chills than the bigger budget big studio flick.
The story is cliched no doubt; a wealthy man (who makes his money by scaring people with amusement park rides) invites a bunch of people to a ginormous old mental hospital which has been abandoned since a mad doctor ran the place in the 1930's. Of course the former doctor was experimenting on patients many of which died horribly. Once everyone gets inside, things really begin to go bump in the night, and unfortunately for them (but lucky for us), the unlucky party goers find themselves trapped inside the monstrous madhouse with no way out.
There is a decent level of gore, and plenty of chills as the ghosts start popping guests off one-by-one. One of the best things about this film is the cast; Famke Janssen before her role in "X-Men" which made all of the nerds come out of the basement and go to the theater, Ali Larter before her role in "Heroes" which made all of the nerds return to the basement to watch TV, Geoffrey Rush slumming between his Oscar win for "Shine" and before becoming a pirate for Disney in "Pirates of the Caribbean" and horror icon Jeffrey Combs also pops in for some fun.
I think one of the reasons the film is so enjoyable is that it wallows in it's B-Movie origins. It's not trying to be a serious film, it achieves what it sets out to do, and that is offer a fun popcorn fueled horror film.
huh? ^ I ORDERED THE MOVIE AND THE BOX WAS EMPTY. . .
cool
Pretty good, Pretty good. ^ the movie was actually really good. its probibally one of the only few horrors that actualy scare me. but the story line plot and evrything was all good. eaven when mr price went in to the saturation chamber. that was personally my favorite scene. but other than that it was a good movie.
Great Creepy Ghost Haunted house movie ^ I may have never seen the original with Vincent Price, but the first time I saw this remake in theaters I was in love. The opening credits and most of the scenes with the ghosts seem as though they were shot by the same directors who did some of NIN's and Marilyn Manson's videos...and who is scarier than those guys.
Overall a great suspenseful, creepy, and mildy gory ghosts out for revenge story a true keeper in my DVD collection.
Great perfomances by Chris Kattan and Geoffrey Rush.
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