Take a big, scary old hospital with a big, scary past, five people hungry
for money and a production crew with millions of dollars for special
effects and what do you have? Ideally, a great Halloween movie to watch and
scare the crap out of you, and in the case of House on Haunted Hill ,
that is almost true.
Steven Price (Geoffrey Rush) is the proud owner of a set of scary theme
parks across the United States. His wife Evelyn (Famke Janssen) is a
voluptuous woman who seems to get off by threatening her husband with
murder and finding ways to scare herself. The couple decides to have a
party at a restored psychiatric hospital that is supposed to be
haunted.
The Vannacutt Psychiatric Institute for the Criminally Insane was home to
many mentally disturbed patients who were tortured by a mad doctor some
time ago. The torture/experimental machines shown in the movie are
astounding.
One day, the patients came together and tried to kill the mad doctor; the
hospital, having state-of-the-art technology (for that time), had the
ability to shut everyone inside so no one could escape. The doctor pulled
the switch and a fire was started so everyone in the building died horrible
deaths, unable to escape. Gruesome story.
The beginning of the movie opens with a scene when the mad doctor headed
the hospital on the night of the fire. The details and horror are great,
maybe not for the weak-stomached, but great nonetheless.
The movie then jumps to the present at one of Price's theme parks, one of
the best fake theme parks to hit the silver screen. After a comical
sideliner, the movie ventures to the hospital. Eddie (Taye Diggs), Sara
Wolf (Ali Larter), Melissa Marr (Bridgette Wilson), Dr. Blackburn (Peter
Gallagher), and Watson Prichett (Saturday Night Live's Chris Kattan)
are the lucky five who have been picked by an unknown source to participate
in the "party."
The five strangers are offered one million dollars each if they can make it
through the night. To make the house seem haunted, Price and his wife have
staged a lot of tricks on their own, which makes it hard for the characters
to even believe that the house is haunted and that it isn't just one big
joke.
House on Haunted Hill opens with an awesome true horror scene and
plays on comedy and more horror to recycle what looks to be a true classic
remake. However, it falls apart in the end. The hope was to generate hype
for the true evil of the house at the end, which ends up looking like a big
black blob.
With too much publicity and a terrible ending,House on Haunted Hill
had the potential to become one of the top recent horror movies to hit the
silver screen, but it didn't. Maybe it was a rush by production to make the
movie timely with the Halloween season, or just sloppy work, but the end
makes the movie lose its charm, quickly. House on Haunted Hill is a
good movie to see on Halloween or anytime for horror fans, but it doesn't
stand behind its punch.