WATCH HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL 1999 MOVIE
Vannacutt (a perfectly cast and frustratingly underutilized Jeffrey Combs), the movie can’t even seem to make up its mind as to just how best it is to unleash any of them, these lethal spirits kept mostly on the sideline for most of the film’s brief 93 minute running time.Īll that said, it’s hard to come down too harshly on this remake. As for the mystery of the ghosts, most notably the murderous spirit of the man who used to own the building and ran the mental institution, Dr. That gets thrown out the window fairly quickly once the lockdown happens, as does the are-they-or-aren’t-they-loaded question surrounding a collection of handguns the amusement park tycoon supplies all of his guests (and his wife) with. There’s also something to be said about the almost whimsical way in which Malone unleashes the requisite blood and gore a remake of this sort can’t help but require, the gruesome reveal of what ends up happening to both Wilson and Max Perlich’s (portraying Price’s tech wizard right-hand man) characters unsettlingly delightful.īut Beebe’s script, while following the general template of Castle’s original, doesn’t make the most of its opportunities, including the central MacGuffin of Price’s offer to each person a cool $1-million if they manage to stay inside the house throughout the night. Additionally, Kattan is shockingly good as the increasingly morose and sardonic Pritchett, his collection of pithy one-liners and snappily dire comebacks a consistent delight. He’s so enthusiastic, so maniacal, watching him prance around the relatively spectacular sets is honestly kind of wonderful. Still, Malone and Beebe do dial up a number of decent laughs, most of them courtesy of an energetic Rush who appears to be having an absolute blast doing his best Vincent Price meets William Castle impersonation.
More importantly, it hasn’t aged particularly well in the almost 20 years since its original release, the horror elements too forced, haphazard and inconsequential for any of what ends up transpiring to feel like it matters one little bit. Directed by William Malone and with a massive reworking of Robb White’s original story written by screenwriter Dick Beebe ( Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2), this well-cast affair still proves to be something of a moderate disappointment.
Things get even stranger when the house closes itself off entirely to the outside world, trapping them all inside, the current owner Pritchett ( Chris Kattan) adamant that none of them are going to see the morning alive as the ghosts residing within this institution are going to pull out all the stops to make sure each of them meets a violently bloody demise.Ī remake of the 1959 William Castle classic starring the one and only Vincent Price, 1999’s House on Haunted Hill is a jokey, gore-drenched remake courtesy of veteran filmmakers and producers Robert Zemeckis and Joel Silver and was the first effort from a re-launched Dark Castle Entertainment that was created to make relatively low budget genre fare just like this. But when a collection of strangers arrive ( Taye Diggs, Peter Gallagher, Ali Larter and Bridgette Wilson) arrive instead of the original invitees, Stephen believes Evelyn is attempting to get the better of him, while she in turn believes he’s the one attempting to make her look like a fool. When his estranged wife Evelyn ( Famke Janssen) insists they have her annual birthday party at the recently restored, supposedly haunted former mental institution that was the scene of an unimaginable tragedy where all but six people met violent, horrifying deaths, amusement park impresario Stephen Price ( Geoffrey Rush), a noted practical joker who enjoys nothing more than a good scare, thinks this is a great idea and begins planning for the party to end all parties.
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