so here is the second of 1999’s remakes of classic horror movies .
the first was the dumb , pathetic but ok remake of the classic ‘the haunting’ .
now comes the highly awaited remake of house on haunted hill .
the classic which starred vincent price as a man who pays a group of people 100 , 000 to stay in his house .
if they survive the night they get the money .
if not well you get the jurisdiction .
having not yet seen the film ( dvd on its way ) i wasn’t sure if i would really like the remake .
but sure enough it comes through and has a great storyline to fall back on .
geoffrey rush ( in a fantastic role with an incredible performance ) is steven price , the owner of an amusement park destined to scare the wits out of people .
his wife evelyn price is throwing a party with her friends .
steven dismays at the idea and makes his own list .
somehow someone , or something changes that list and five other people are invited to the party .
eddie ( taye diggs ) an ex-baseball player , sarah ( ali carter ) an ex-assistant who can re-wire anything , melissa ( brigette wilson ) a talk-show host in sorts , dr . blackburn ( peter ghallager ) , and watson ( chris kattan ) a smart-mouthed humorist in ways .
what he is gonna do is pay these five people 1 , 000 , 000 dollars if they can survive through the night .
if they can they get the money , if not well they don’t .
the house on haunted hill used to be an insane asylum .
years before mental patients broke out and killed the dr . there , forcing him to lock the place up because if he died , so did they .
everyone who was in there burned to death .
now it is steven price’s home and he is throwing this party for these five people .
what starts out as a seemingly normal night , turns into a horrifying , blood splattering night .
the deep dark secrets of what really happened in that asylum and why those guests are actually there are revealed .
one-by-one the people start to disappear .
conspiracies start to turn up , and steven price finds out that his house may be alive after all .
the people find rooms , which once held mental patients .
rooms which once had people dying .
rooms which may still contain these people .
now these five people must try and survive the night and try and survive the house , and they must survive each other with terrorfying results .
since i officially haven’t seen the original i can’t say which is better .
i can say however i liked this movie .
geoffrey rush gives a one in a million performance as the rich steven price , and does a great job doing a vincent price role .
famke jansen as his wife was great and even kind of eerie at times .
ali carter and taye diggs sort of become the main characters and ali carter who debuted in varsity blues gives a fantastic performance here as does taye diggs .
chris kattan gives us great comic relief and the movie contains a lot of comical lines .
peter ghallager and brigette wilson were great as well and gave commanding performances as potential victims .
the plot was well conceived and was very absorbing .
the movie has atmosphere the whole way through that is disturbing and creepy , and even sometimes downright scary .
i found even the opening credits to me a little ominous .
one thing i knew not to expect was a ‘haunting’ type movie with special effects galore .
even though it had fantastic gore and special effects , the movie has only a 19 million dollar budget , which doesn’s show all the way through but you can tell .
the movie was written well , and it’s only major flaw is the under-developed characters and plot holes that we are left with .
the ending is quite clever and some may not even get it .
i must say house on haunted hill was a surprise .
i was expecting another haunting with special effects , no scares and a dumb ending .
instead i found a good halloween movie with gore , scares and great acting .
house on haunted hill is one of those movies you really can’t take seriously .
though it is a well-made movie with a good storyline it still has some flaws .
but besides that the movie is fun , smart and scary and makes us wonder why remakes like this can’t be made all the time !