House on Haunted Hill (1999 film)
| House on Haunted Hill | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | William Malone |
| Written by | Robb White Dick Beebe |
| Produced by | Robert Zemeckis Joel Silver |
| Starring | Geoffrey Rush Famke Janssen Taye Diggs Peter Gallagher Chris Kattan Ali Larter Bridgette Wilson Max Perlich |
| Cinematography | Rick Bota |
| Edited by | Anthony Adler |
| Music by | Don Davis |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Dark Horse |
Release dates | October 29, 1999 |
Running time | 93 min. |
| Country |  |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $19 million |
| Box office | $40,846,082 |
House on Haunted Hill is a 1999 Warner Brothers horror movie, directed by William Malone, written by Dick Beebe and starring Geoffrey Rush as Steven Price. Produced by Robert Zemeckis and Joel Silver, it is a remake of the 1959 classic of the same name directed by William Castle, borrowing elements from the 1973 classic Don't Look in the Basement. This film was the first for Dark Castle Entertainment.
The film is often compared with The Haunting, another 1999 remake of a similar classic from 1963, based on the novel The Haunting of Hill House. Also worth noting, in comparison to the original, while William Castle's version leaves a degree of ambiguity as to the presence of ghosts in the building, the remake leaves no doubt whatsoever.
Plot
The film sets the action in an abandoned asylum, The Vannacutt Psychiatric Institute for the Criminally Insane, where mass-murders were undertaken in the past. The head of the facility, Doctor Richard B. Vannacutt (Jeffrey Combs), performed grotesque experiments and medical procedures on the patients, killing many of them in the process. The hospital was shut down when many of the so-called "patients" escaped, killing almost the entire staff and burning the hospital. Vannacutt had rigged the building with numerous iron gates actuated by cranks and levers to serve, for the most part, as barriers to keep patients from leaving the building, should they escape. Some of these barriers are subject to huge clock-like timers that would not open for twelve hours. During the fire, he released these gates keeping the inmates, employees and the fire itself contained. After several unexplained deaths during reconstruction on the house, mostly the owners of the house, it was dubbed The House on Haunted Hill.
The story centers around the disintegrating marriage of Evelyn (Famke Janssen), a spoiled trophy wife who defines high maintenance and Steven Price (Geoffrey Rush), an amusement park mogul with a wicked sense of humor, each of whom would cheerfully kill the other. Evelyn fancies spectacular parties, so Steve leases the house from the owner, Watson Pritchett (Chris Kattan) descendant of the house's owners, for her Halloween birthday bash. Steven was supposed to send out the invitations from the two-page list of names given him by Evelyn. However, invitations were sent to only four people - Jennifer Jenzen (aka Sara Wolfe) (Ali Larter), Eddie Baker (Taye Diggs), Melissa Margaret Marr (Bridgette Wilson) and Dr. Donald Blackburn (Peter Gallagher). When the guests arrive, neither Evelyn nor Steven (seemingly) know who they are. Despite this, Price continues the party's theme, offering a million dollars to anyone who stays in the house and survives until morning, with any person not making it having his money added to the winners' pot.
Shortly after, the security gates are tripped, sealing itself shut and locking everyone inside, forcing them to remain there until the gates reopen in the morning. Initially this is a gimmick orchestrated by Carl Schecter (Max Perlich), a company employee who develop a series of harmless traps meant to scare the guests. But this of course is not the case, when everyone begins to see the house come alive. What follows is the slow, and often bloody, demise of several of the guests and hosts in various ways, courtesy of the evil spirits of the house. It is discovered that the spirits in the house created the party list to include the descendants of the five members of Vannacutt's staff that didn't die at the hospital when it burned.
Cast
- Geoffrey Rush as Steven H. Price
- Famke Janssen as Evelyn Stockard-Price
- Taye Diggs as Eddie Baker
- Peter Gallagher as Dr. Donald W. Blackburn, MD
- Chris Kattan as Watson Pritchett
- Ali Larter as Sara Wolfe
- Bridgette Wilson as Melissa Margaret Marr
- Max Perlich as Carl Schecter
- Jeffrey Combs as Dr. Richard Benjamin Vannacutt
Deleted scenes
One of the deleted scenes was not shown in the deleted scenes list in the bonus features of the DVD. The scene was where Melissa Margaret Marr was wandering through the first floor maze of hallways with her camcorder and went by an elaborate painting of a gothic demon done in anamorphosis. The demon attempts to grab her.
Another scene that was deleted and also not shown on the DVD was Sara and Eddie being saved by a coastguard at the end of the movie. It was cut because director William Malone believed it didn't fit in with the movie and didn't suit the ending.
On the DVD release of the film were 3 deleted scenes:
- Sara gets the invite (both versions)
- Zombies underneath the House
- Epilogue
Sequel
Warner Premeire realeased the sequel Return to House on Haunted Hill on DVD on October 16, 2007. The film has some ties to the first with one of the main characters being realated to Ali Larter's character. With also a few mentions to the events in the first film and the characters Sara Wolfe and Steven Price.