Review of House on Haunted Hill (1999) by Sarah E — 23 Oct 2011

I don't like that I'm giving the remake of a classic horror film a better rating, but I feel like I have to: the original House on Haunted Hill just didn't all the thrills, chills, and horror that this new version does. Now, this update is far from being perfect. The performances are especially awful. Only Rush was having fun with this movie. While everybody else is phoning in their stale dialogue, he manages to imbue Steven Price with a little bit of character. It's a shame he gets devoured by the house.

Wait, did I just write house? I shouldn't have. This isn't about a house. One of the better aspects of the movie are the developments to the original story. In this version, the house is actually an insane asylum, and the ghosts - which are genuine - are all tortured inmates and staff, doomed to haunt by nightfall and kill people in terrible, grotesque ways. Rush's Price is told by his wife (played by Famke Janssen) that the asylum will be the location for her birthday party. To spite her, Price sends out the invitations to several random people instead of those already on her guest list. What he doesn't know is that the asylum ends up sending the invites to those souls it failed to capture when the original massacre took place within. Once night falls, the asylum is locked, and the guests are pitted against a supernatural entity. If they survive, they get a million dollars for their troubles. If they die? Well, they die, and they die poor.

The reason this version strikes such a chord with me has more to do with the updates themselves than simply the fact that this is an updated version of the movie. The shift from a house to an asylum gives the filmmakers plenty of opportunities for creepy visuals, a fact they take to with such gusto that I did sleep with the lights on after watching this movie the first time. There's violence and gore aplenty in this version, and all of it is disturbing. Another pleasure is the film's legitimate supernatural entity. The original House used the prospect of the supernatural as a red herring, and while that was interesting, it only lent itself to plot holes. Here, the plot is already holy as all hell, and the supernatural entity is the only thing holding it together. That works for me, since the movie is actually scary this time around.