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The House on Haunted Hill | Year: 1999 Classification: Horror Directed: - William Malone Actors/Actresses: - Geoffrey Rush - Famke Janssen Disappointing This movie starts of great. A mad doctor conducting horrible experiments in an insane asylum, the inmates riot and nearly everyone is killed in a terrible fire. And then we move to the present day with Geoffrey Rush playing an impressario with just the best roller coaster ride arranging a party for his neglected wife (Famke Janssen). Unfortunately the story goes down hill after that. The guests at the party are not those actually invited but the decendents of the people who survived the fire, invited so that the evil residing in the house can wreak its revenge. You get lots of spooky opportunities, minor chords, jiggling and monstrous faces a la Jacob's Ladder and lots of blood. But none of this is new and although you may jump a few times, it is not really scary. The effects are not really state of the art and evil is far too easily defeated (or at least managed). The best scenes (available on the DVD) seemed to have been cut from the movie. I have given this three stars because the DVD interface is very well done and there are some nice extras. If you want to be scared, watch the original. If you want a laugh with your mates over a beer or two, this is for you. "Funky Old House, Ain't It?" This movie was very entertaining and scary at the same time. This just happened to be one of the scariest movies of the 90's. Why? Because it didn't rip off a book to become a teen slasher film (I Know What You Did Last Summer), it didn't come up with a lame plot (Idle Hands), and it isn't a bad remake like Psycho. All in all it's a great film with an entertaining and exiting plot. Steven Price (Geoffrey Rush) is a famous theme park owner with a very spoiled and snobby wife Evelyn (Famke Janssen). After she demandes a birthday party from him, he decides to have it at the House on Haunted Hill. Now, they both hate each other, so he decides to shred her guest list and invite his own friends. But as it turns out the people that show up aren't the people he invited in the first place. The people that do show up are, Dr. Blackburn(Peter Galleger), former pro baseball player Eddie (Taye Diggs), Television reporter Mellisa Marr (Bridgette Wilson), assistant reporter Sara (Ali Larter), and the house's owner Pritchett (Chris Kattan).Both husband and wife have no idea how these people got here, but don't really seem to care. After introductions, the glass skylight mysteriously falls almost killing Evelyn. We soon find out that Price has rigged mysterious things to go off during the night, like the skylight. Price now tells all of his guests that there is a contest that they are now in. If they make it through the night, without being killed, they win a million cool ones. This would all be fine and dandy if the house didn't have a mind of it's own. After Price has explained all of the this the house closes up (with huge metal plates) and all are trapped inside. Now we just happen to find out that the house used to be an asylum for the criminal minded. Now the fun begins, stabbings, ghosts, shootings, dismemberment and psychotic disturbance are around every corner. Evil Loves to Party... Non-stop thrills It is no coincedence that this film starts in an amusement park. It is a non-stop thrill ride from beginning to end.<BR>The DVD is packed with great extras: 6 minidocumentaries, 3 deleted scenes (the second one, "Zombies" explains a continuity error - the missing jacket), commentary by the director, theatrical trailers for both versions of the film, scenes from the film "Creature", and a documentary on the two versions of the film.<BR>Pop the disc in a DVD-ROM drive and you have access to two essays. The first is "Oh, The Horror! A History of Horror" with the following sections: Germanic Origins; The Universal Horror Factory; Bloody Rivals; A Symphony of Horrors; Ghosts, Ghouls and Gimmicks; Hammer's House of Horrors; Satan's Minions; The Shark That Ate the Box Office; "Psycho" and the Slashers; New Heights of Blood and Gore; Big-Budget Bloodbaths; Of Witches and Ghosts.<BR>The second essay is "Take Two! (Or Three!) A Retrospective of Horror Remakes" with the following sections: "I Am...Dracula"; "It's Alive! It's Alive!"; "He's Here!"; "The Eighth Wonder of the World!"; "Watch the Skies!"; "You're Next! You're Next!"; "A Force...Beyond the Scope of Man's Imagination"; "Help Me! Help Me!"; "Mother, She Isn't Quite Herself Today"; "Welcome to Hill House".<BR>The Website for the film is also included on the disc.<BR>A Windows game is included title "Escape From the House." <BR>While the game only works in Windows, the essays are accessible from a Macintosh using a web browser.<BR>MPEG versions of trailers for "Arsenic and Old Lace", "Beetlejuice", "Poltergeist", "The Shining" (1980), and the two "Haunted Hill" films are on the disc as well. Buy The House On Haunted Hill at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on The House On Haunted Hill Search with the Priority Search Engine on The House On Haunted Hill This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
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