I tend to always forget about this movie when I’m mentally compiling a list of the best remakes done of classic horror and/or scifi/horror flicks. This list is always small, and I think all of you will all agree with it: Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978), The Thing (1982), The Fly (1986), The Blob (1988) and House On Haunted Hill (1999). Most of these flicks are late 70s to early/mid 80s and with Haunted Hill coming in at the very tale end of the 90s, well, this is probably why I fail to add it. I recommend any filmmaker eager to remake any classic genre flick to watch the originals of those listed and then the remakes.
I’ve never seen William Castle’s House On Haunted Hill (1959), so don’t expect a comparison, but in Malone’s version we get a backstory about the “house,” and at one time it was a very prominent asylum in the 30s known as the Vannacutt Institute for the Criminally Insane, headed by Dr. Richard Benjamin Vannacutt, who was a pretty sadistic “doctor” according to what we see in the opening prologue flashback and various other “flashbacks” in the movie, and who did they get to play this “mad doctor,” none other than Jeffery Combs, better known as Dr. Herbert West from the Re-Animator trilogy. At some point the patients decided to rise up and kill Vannacut and his staff, but as that was happening Vannacut had time to trigger lockdown, a measure he had in place just in case something like this happened. Once this lever was pulled all the doors and windows were sealed. Apparently a fire also broke out so with everyone trapped inside they all burned, except for five members of his head staff. Prime conditions for a haunting now, don’t you think?
The dead now aren’t too happy five members of his head staff escaped, cut to 1999, and they’re still bent on revenge, so since the original members are no longer with us, the best they can do is lure in five descendants and punish them for the “evil” they committed.
Enter Steven H. Price (Geoffrey Rush) and his wife, Evelyn (Famke Janssen), last name in homage to Vincent Price, and Rush, sporting a pencil-thin mustache, does kind of give off a Price vibe. Price makes his living creating rides for amusement parks, he’s a showman by nature, but his only vice is Evelyn (whom I believe he actually loves), but come to find out she married him only for his money, and since he refused to give her a divorce, where she stands a good chance in getting some of his fortune, they’re marriage has now devolved into a “War Of The Roses-type union.” So, in the intervening years she’s tried to kill him on numerous occasions, figuring death might be the next best option to getting his money.
This is how the plot of House On Haunted Hill comes about, Evelyn’s idea actually after seeing a show about the 1931 asylum fire, she decides to have her birthday party in the “house,” and arranges a guest list of her liking, but Price has a better plan. It’s not explicit, except for what Evelyn believes and voices at one point, but his new arrangement is to set-up the murder of his wife, which we don’t really see evidence of until the last act. Price shreds her list of guests and makes one of his own, then his list is deleted by the forces inside the asylum and new one, unbeknownst to the Prices, is created, this is our cast now: Sara Wolf (Ali Larter), Melissa Margaret Marr (Bridgette Wilson), Eddie Baker (Taye Diggs), Dr. Donald Blackburn. M.D. (Peter Gallagher), and Wilson Pritchett (Chris Kattan), owner of the house, who knows all about its current dark and haunted secrets and wants to get out, with his check, as soon as possible after greeting and leading everyone up to the house.
There’s a couple of “wild cards” in the cast, Baker was adopted so he’s not related by blood to the staff member the house wanted dead, but I guess that doesn’t matter, which kind of makes sense when you’re swimming in revenge, guilty by association to your enemy is enough to get your killed. Blackburn isn’t related to any of them, which makes you wonder why the house kept him on the list, and which list was he originally on, Evelyn’s or Steven’s, if he was on one of them? You see Blackburn has an interesting connection to both Prices. Revealed first is Blackburn and Evelyn know each other, presumably he’s someone she’s been screwing, and they’re trying to frame Steven for murder while they’re enduring the horror of the asylum. Revealed near the end is that Steven knows all about Blackburn and knows everything he and Evelyn have ever discussed. Both of these revelations kind of strain logic a little bit.
After everyone is inside the house, Evelyn shows up and asks who the fuck are all of you? Once Steven shows up he doesn’t know who all these people are either. Of course they’re both lying; they know Blackburn. His presence should have tipped her off Steven knows, and there’s only one moment where both of them are with each other away from the others, and Blackburn’s presence is never mentioned. I wouldn’t expect an outright statement, but the both of them could have sparred cryptically over the presence of a certain someone, which would make Steven’s revelation about knowing him make better sense.
Anyway, Steven co-ops her birthday party and turns it into a game where a million dollars can be won, all they have to do is live until dawn, and the surviving members’ cash will be divvied up among the survivors.
Do they really expect this to be an actual game of death?
Obviously not.
Price arranges for everyone to have a gun, but the clips are welded shut so no one knows if there are actual bullets in them or not. They’re aren’t, they’re blanks, so Steven claims, and the presence of the real bullets is claimed to be the act of the possessed house, but…. I won’t say any more.
Suddenly, lockdown is triggered, and everyone is trapped inside, something even Steven may not have accounted for, and now begins the act of the house picking everyone off as they separate to find a way out. Individual entities are encountered, some die bloodily at their hands, but the most dangerous one is this Darkness that has lain dormant in this room, a room someone tried to brick up, but failed miserably. This Lovecraftian nightmare is made of shadow, sports ethereal tendrils and is made up of all the inmates who died; an incorporeal version of John Carpenter and Rob Bottin’s version of The Thing in a way. When it kills someone their soul gets added to the mass. It’s a very unique looking entity too, one mistaken by some viewers as a CGI creation, but in reality it was a creation made up of many practical effects pieces in post-production and composited into the film, though Malone did admit that shot of Marr’s ghostly form manifesting out of it was a CGI effect, and so is the rope burning when they’re in the attic.
Everything about this movie oozes atmosphere and style, even the house itself which is situated on a hill overlooking the ocean, and whose labyrinthine rooms in the basement, where most of the action takes place, genuinely bleeds with ghoulishness bred from what Vannacutt used to do to the patients and what the dead patients are now doing to the living. Stick around at the end of the credits because there’s this one mysterious scene of the inmates killing a nurse and a doctor back in 1931 and the doctor looks exactly like Steven and the nurse looks exactly like Evelyn. I wasn’t sure what to make of this. It reminded me of that shot in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) where we see Jack Torrance in that old photo at the end of the movie. My theory was present day Steven and Evelyn were reincarnated forms of the two lives they had working for Vannacutt, and they were the two of the five the house wanted revenge upon. Malone’s commentary does not explain that shot at all, neither does any of the other extras on the disc.
Singer Lisa Loeb and James Marsters (Spike from Buffy, The Vampire Slayer series) have cameos in the beginning as reporter and cameraman interviewing Price at the opening of his latest rollercoaster creation.
A direct-to-DVD sequel was made in 2007 called, Return To House On Haunted Hill.
Warner Brothers has had House On Haunted Hill in release on DVD only, until now. This new 2K remastered blu-ray comes courtesy of Shout! Factory’s genre sub-label, Scream Factory, on October 9th! Buy it here on Amazon or on Shout’s site!
Video/Audio/Subtitles: 1080p 1.85:1 high definition widescreen—5.1 English DTS-HD Master Audio—English subs only
Malone explains in his interview he didn’t want a crisp clear look for his movie when he was filming it, he wanted something soft to fit in with the style of old movies, and that’s what this 2K remaster looks like to me.
Extras Included . . .
- Audio Commentary With Director William Malone
- Interview With Director William Malone NEW (37:30)
- Interview With Composer Don Davis NEW (9:40)
- Interview With Visual Effects Supervisor Robert Skotak NEW (18:42)
- Concept Art & Storyboards (2:53)
- Behind-The-Scenes Visual Effects Gallery (5:44)
- Movie Stills & Poster Gallery (4:37)
- A Tale Of Two Houses – 1999 Featurette (19:14)
- Behind the Visual FX – 1999 Featurette (7:01)
- Deleted Scenes (4 scenes) (12:04)
- Theatrical Trailer
- TV Spots
I was hoping when this hit blu this might end up being a director’s cut, William Malone mentioned a couple of years ago on his Facebook page he was hoping Warner would do a director’s cut, and those deleted scenes put back in would make it a more “well-rounded version,” since some of the excised material is seeing the characters get their invitations and a character get her comeuppance in an epilogue.
The three new extras are great, with the director, the composer and one of the FX artists looking back at this now nineteen year old film. All the extras from the 2000 DVD have been ported over. Man, does time fly.
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