Cover Art

Credits

Director: William Malone Starring: Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Ali Larter, Taye Diggs, Bridgette Wilson, Peter Gallagher, Chris Kattan, Jeffrey Combs, Max Perlich, Lisa Loeb, James Marsters Screenplay: Dick Beebe Tagline: "Six strangers have the chance to make $1,000,000 EACH. All they have to do is make it through the night alive" Country: USA

The House on Haunted Hill was a mental asylum that was set on fire by it's patients after killing the doctors and nurses that were conducting strange surgical experiments on them. After seeing a report on TV about the notorious house, Evelyn Price (Famke Janssen) decides that she would like her birthday party to be conducted there. So, her husband Stephen Price (Geoffrey Rush) rents the spook house for a night and invites five strangers, who have never met Price before, and offers them $1 million dollars to each who spends and survives the night. Included in this group is a ex-baseball player (Taye Diggs), a doctor (Peter Gallagher), a washed-up game show host looking to find stardom once again (Bridgette Wilson), a young business-woman (Ali Larter) and the owner of the property (Chris Kattan), who seems to be the only person who knows that staying another minute in the house is literally murder. Price, being an amusement park mogul, had rigged the house for scares throughout the night, aided by one of his employees (Max Perlich), but soon enough the house shuts it's doors, confining it's guests with Price finding his co-conspirator missing his face. They realize from Wilson Pritchett (Kattan) that the former head doctor of the asylum (Jeffrey Combs) is still at work - only this time as a spirit, and will be looking forward to killing them all before dawn. Unlike the original Haunted Hill, where the house mystique was all a unique set-up for a murder pact, this House delves more into the supernatural elements of the actual asylum. And this gives way to extraneous rooms and basements, bloodstained walls and eerie saturation chambers, and ghosts who are still doing their work in the afterlife.

Director William Malone knows his way around the genre workings, but seems to have settled on the 1990's blueprint. Se7en-style opening credits, groups of characters getting knocked off one by one, and Marilyn Manson tunes on the soundtrack are visible in the film. Malone also must be a fan of Aphex Twin music videos, as nods are clearly evident. The first half of the film, devoted to introducing the characters, the house and the suspense, is done well and makes the film seem interesting and leading to a satisfying conclusion, which unfortunately, is not to be. The second half has to live up to the scares it promises, but it doesn't eventuate. The gore is minimal, and blood is scarcely here or there. Dick Smith's special effects are really effective though, with different creatures looking very cool.