We’re in Los Angeles, and the year is 1931. At the Vannacutt Psychiatric Institute for the Criminally Insane, the staff are under attack by the patients who are throwing a revolt against the sadistic assholes working there. The place, led by the sadistic Dr. Richard B. Vannacutt (yeah, that name speaks for itself) have been conducting medical experiments on the patients and they’ve all had enough. A fire breaks out, and nearly everyone dies, except five people from staff who manages to get out.
Then we head over to 1999, where Stephen Price (not to be confused with Vincent Price, despite looking almost exactly like him) is working on staging his wife’s birthday party at the abandoned hospital, which has over the years been partly converted into a residence. Price is an amusement park mogul, and well-known for his elaborate pranks. He invites five people to the party, but here’s a twist: the five people who arrive there are not the ones he invited. The ones who turn up are baseball player Eddie Baker, Melissa Marr who is a former television personality, physician Donald Blackburn, production assistant Sara Wolfe, and the building’s owner Pritchett. Price is confused, but still decide to hold the party as planned, and offers $1 million to each guest who remains inside the house until morning. In the case of someone fleeing or perishing inside the house, that person’s money will be divided amongst the remaining guests.
Then the inevitable happens: the security system in the building is tripped, and locks everyone inside. Why this happened? Who knows. Price blames his wife, she blames him. Sara, Eddie and Pritchett goes to the basement, that looks like a labyrinth, in order to find the control panel. And then things start happening, but is it really ghosts or just some of Price’s pranks? Because yeah, of course the place is rigged all over, and Price has an assistant overseeing the party stunts. But when he goes to check on him, Price finds the guy murdered in a horrible way. Dr. Vannacutt still wanna cut (har-har) it seems. Next up for the body counts is Evelyn, who has been strapped to an electroshock therapy table and is literally shocked to death. The question is: are the murders done by the living or the dead?
House on Haunted Hill is a supernatural horror film from 1999, directed by William Malone and based on the William Castle film House on Haunted Hill from 1959. This film was the producing debut of Dark Castle Entertainment, and it was released on Halloween weekend in 1999. In the tradition of William Castle’s gimmicks, Warner Bros. handed out some promotional scratchcards to the cinemas showing the film, offering ticket buyers to have a chance of winning a money prize just like the characters in the movie. The film was a commercial success, and opened as number one at the U.S. box office, grossing $65 million worldwide. And, surprise surprise – it still got mainly negative reviews from critics.
While the original film was more aimed at delivering a spooky atmosphere with a murder mystery, where the supernatural events were mostly hinted at, this one takes it all out and presents ghostly and gory mayhem all over the place. And while the house in the original was not the typical victorian mansion or something alike, the same goes for this film. The building looks incredibly oppressive. The exterior and interiors were designed by David Klassen, who used inspiration from Albert Speer, an architect who designed monolithic style buildings for Nazi Germany.
The special effects were designed by Gregory Nicotero and Robert Kurtman, with additional makeup design by Dick Smith. The film’s final scene effects were designed by KNB EFX Group, supervised by Robert Skotak. And while these effects have become somewhat notorious for being horribly bad CGI, most of the effects for that scene were actually made up of footage and photographs which were grafted together. There’s also a fair amount of practical effects in the film, and this combined with the set pieces almost makes it look like a fun and spooky haunted house attraction. With some decent gore added to the mix, there’s certainly a lot to keep your eyes busy with!
The acting here is pretty decent, especially from Geoffrey Rush playing Stephen Price, who was made to look very much like Vincent Price in an obvious reference. His wife Evelyn was played by Famke Janssen, who fits the role perfectly as the sly and seductive trophy wife. Dr. Vannacutt, the big bad of the film was played by Jeffrey Combs and he pulls of a nice portrayal of a gleefully sadistic doctor. House on Haunted Hill is very different from the original, but so fun in many ways if you want some goofy, campy haunted house B-schlocker. There’s still some twists and turns, just like in the original.
In 2007, there was a direct-to-DVD sequel called Return to House on Haunted Hill, with Jeffrey Combs reprising his role as Dr. Vannacutt. This film had no involvement from William Malone.
Director: William Malone
Writer: Dick Beebe
Country & year: USA/1999
Actors: Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Taye Diggs, Peter Gallagher, Chris Kattan, Ali Larter, Bridgette Wilson-Sampras, Max Perlich, Jeffrey Combs, Dick Beebe, Slavitza Jovan
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185371/
