House on Haunted Hill

Summary

“I lied. The house is alive. We’re all gonna die.”

Shout! Factory recently began distributing numerous films from Dark Castle Entertainment. Dark Castle Entertainment was a production group within Silver Pictures that was a partnership between Joel Silver, Robert Zemeckis, and Gil Adler. They released numerous horror films in the late Nineties and early 2000s. I recently watched the movie Ghost Ship, and found myself enjoying it for the fairly ridiculous ride that it offered. When Shout! Factory had their big sale, I couldn’t resist purchasing Thir13en Ghosts and House on Haunted Hill, to refresh my memory of what horror films were like back in my halcyon days of late adolescence. My little sister Cassie is a huge fan of Ghost Ship, so while she was in town visiting we watched both House on Haunted Hill and Thir13en Ghosts. Both of those films are remakes of classic William Castle films, which is why the production group was named Dark Castle. I am not sure why they eventually veered away from the idea of remaking Castle’s filmography, which is a fun idea that I think could have continued to pay off dividends, but I am sure they had their reasons for doing other things.

For the first film, Zemeckis and his team enlisted director William Malone and writer Dick Beebe whom had both worked on Tales from the Crypt episodes. In some ways these films play like Tales from the Crypt episodes with much larger budgets. As a fan of that series, I was happy to revisit House on Haunted Hill. As a teenager when I viewed the movie, I didn’t think much of it. This was not really the fault of the film, but because the original House on Haunted Hill was one of my all time favorite horror films. I didn’t understand why they had veered so far from the original source material (or really understand why you would remake something so great.) Rewatching the film, I was happy to basically turn my brain off and throw away all of my original disdain for the film. I am glad that I did. I ended up having a great time with my sister watching it and laughing throughout the course of the film. I was surprised by how well it had aged.

In 1931, Dr. Richard B. Vannacutt (Jeffrey Combs) conducts bizarre experiments on his patients at the Vannacutt Psychiatric Institute for the Criminally Insane. His work is interrupted when inmates of the asylum break lose. They begin assaulting and murdering the staff and set fire to the building – killing all of the inmates and all but five staff members. In 1999, amusement park mogul Steven Price (Geoffrey Rush) is married to a woman who hates him named Evelyn (Famke Janssen.) She insists that they have her birthday celebration at the residence that was formerly the asylum. Watson Pritchett (Chris Kattan) meets the guests for the party to allow them entry to the house. The party attendees include baseball player Eddie Baker (Taye Diggs,) TV star Melissa Marr (Bridgette Wilson,) film producer Jennifer Jenzen (Ali Larter,) doctor Donald Blackburn (Peter Gallagher,) and Watson Pritchett himself. Steven and Evelyn Price have no idea who any of these people are and they are not who they intended to invite for the party, but Steven decides to continue with the theme of the party. Each invitee stands to gain a check from Price for one million dollars if they can survive a night in the house which Watson assures them all is evil and haunted. As the film plays out, it becomes obvious that Watson was correct. 

House on Haunted Hill is an entertaining and lighthearted horror film that does not take itself too seriously. The last decade has seen horror films start to focus more heavily on dreary topics and realism. As much as I enjoy some of those films (It Follows, Midsommar) what I think appeals to me about the Dark Castle movies is that they are not at all focused on reality. They offer some laughs, some ridiculous dialogue, a few jump scares, a little bit of nudity, and there is closure when the credits roll. It would be easy to talk down to these films (which of course were critically maligned at the time,) but these films were not designed to be considered serious cinema. They were popcorn movies designed to entertain, and I think for the most part they achieved their goal.

House on Haunted Hill is my favorite of the first three films from Dark Castle. The reason why I like it the most is due to the casting in the film. It boasts a strong mixture of seasoned lead performers and entertaining character actors. Geoffrey Rush is a lot of fun to watch in the role that was first played by Vincent Price. While he does not dethrone Vincent Price’s original performance, there is still a lot to enjoy about his acting in the film. It helps the film a tremendous amount to have an Academy Award winning actor basically slumming it and obviously having fun in the role. Peter Gallagher is another bit of good casting. Gallagher is a reliably good actor and elevates the admittedly goofy proceedings by simply showing up in the film. Famke Janssen is great in the film as the hateful wife and femme fatale. She is a great match to Geoffrey Rush. Taye Diggs is not given much to work with in his role, but he keeps a straight face while delivering some dialogue that is not quite worthy of the Broadway seasoned actor. The film definitely lends itself to the trope of a white writer trying to write African American dialogue and basically failing. Ali Larter and Bridgette Wilson are nice additions to the cast cashing in on their recognizability from their roles in Varsity Blues and Mortal Kombat. Surprisingly, the performance that I may like the most in the film is Chris Kattan’s performance. My little sister and I were honestly taken aback by how effective he was in the role. He had me laughing with almost every line he delivered, because he actually held back in his performance and allowed the lines themselves to be funny instead of trying to force the jokes to land through over-emphasizing. It left me wanting to see more of him in films, which I would have never thought was a possibility. William Malone does a capable job of directing the proceedings and used practical in-camera effects for the majority of the film (aside from some fairly weak looking CGI in the finale.) His interview on the disc goes into pretty good detail about how many of the effects in the film were created without the use of CGI, so it is worth checking out.

House on Haunted Hill is definitely not a perfect film, but it is definitely one that I enjoyed revisiting. Some of the effects in the film scream of the era in which it was made, and any time I hear a shock rocker like Marylin Manson song featured in a film it severely dates it, but those two small caveats aside, it was a lot of fun. 

Video

Shout!Factory have provided a new transfer of House on Haunted Hill from a 2K scan of original film elements. By and large, this is a very attractive presentation of the film. As discussed by director William Malone, the negative of the film was intentionally exposed to some light in the development process to give the film a less detailed look. This means that the film looks a little soft in terms of fine detail, but intentionally so. Colors look nice and the production design of the film is enjoyable onscreen. The computer generated moments in the final sequences show their age, but these sequences are limited and don’t hamper the overall visual impact of the film. I think that fans of the film will be pleased to see the film given the royal treatment, even if the film does not blow away visual expectations on Blu-ray.  

Audio

Shout!Factory has provided a well done DTS-HD MA 5.1 track. The surrounds are employed fairly often to good effect. The score by Don Davis accentuates the kooky semi-scary atmospherics well. Marilyn Manson’s “Sweet Dreams” makes an appearance in the film to remind everyone that this film was made in the late Nineties. Dialogue is clear and the sound mixing is well done.

Supplements:

• Audio Commentary with Director William Malone
• Interview with Director William Malone – the director of the film discusses how the film was developed, what changes were implemented for updating the film from the original, the cast and crew, and the numerous in-camera effects used in the film. This is a really informative interview that fans of the film will certainly enjoy.
• Interview with Composer Don Davis – the composer of the film discusses his contributions to the movie and also some more general  thoughts on composing.
• Interview with Visual Effects Supervisor Robert Skotak – I don’t always dive into the visual effects pieces in special features, but I found this one consistently engaging. Good stuff.
• Concept Art and Storyboard Gallery
• Behind the Scenes Visual FX Gallery
• Movie Stills and Poster Gallery
• A Tale of Two Houses – Vintage Featurette
• Behind the Visual FX – Vintage Featurette
• Deleted Scenes
• Theatrical Trailer
• TV Spots

Overall Scores:

Video – 4/5

Audio – 4.5/5

Supplements – 4/5

Overall – 4/5

House on Haunted Hill is sure to make any fan of the original film upset with the liberties it took from the original script on the first viewing. This definitely occurred in my case back in high school and left me holding the film in low regard. Once you get past that issue and accept the film as its own piece of intellectual property, it becomes a lot more fun and enjoyable. I had a lot of fun revisiting the film. My sister and I consistently laughed and found the film really entertaining. The cast in this film is the best cast ever assembled for one of the Dark Castle films led by strong performances by Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Peter Gallagher, and shockingly – Chris Kattan. The special features on the disc are enjoyable and shed a lot of light on how the film was developed. Fans of Tales from the Crypt, should find themselves enjoying the film.