11/5/2022 0 Comments House on haunted hill 2Visually, the pic is nothing if not eclectic: The f/x crew apparently spent a lot of time studying the darkly impressionistic artwork of George Grosz and the more nightmarish parts of “Jacob’s Ladder.” Production notes frankly acknowledge the Albert Speer influence, evident in exterior matte shots of the ex-asylum. Purists may miss the plastic skeleton that Castle wanted exhibitors to string from the ceiling in major-market theaters during screenings of his “classic.” Everyone else will appreciate the improvements. The blood flows more freely and the body count is appreciably higher in the new “House on Haunted Hill.” Unlike the 1958 version, which turned out to be a tale of all-too-human villainy, the remake is a horror show with full-blown poltergeists and state-of-the-art effects. (Talk about inflation: In the 1958 version, the payoff was $10,000.) Stephen has rigged some tricks to scare his guests, and Evelyn has a few tricks of her own, but things get out of hand when truly supernatural terrors begin. He offers to pay $1 million to anyone who spends the night in the haunted house and lives to see daylight. Shrugging off the unsolved mystery of why the four strangers received invitations, Stephen sticks to his original plan. (At least that’s his story, and he’s sticking to it.) Evelyn says she didn’t invite them, either. Stephen receives the first of several unpleasant surprises when he greets the invitees: Eddie (Taye Diggs), an ex-baseball player Blackburn (Peter Gallagher), a soft-spoken doctor Melissa Marr (Bridgette Wilson), a former TV anchor who’s eager for another shot at stardom Sara (Ali Larter), a strong-willed beauty who claims to be a movie studio executive and Pritchett (Chris Kattan), a high-strung, hard-drinking fellow who is the last living descendant of the asylum’s original owner.Įxcept for Pritchett, Stephen doesn’t know any of these people. He agrees, but replaces her guest list with his own. Evelyn demands that her husband rent the still-standing Vannacutt Psychiatric Institute for the Criminally Insane - a monolithic art deco edifice atop a spooky oceanside hill - so she can throw a birthday party there. Among the fascinated viewers: Evelyn Price (Famke Janssen), Stephen’s shamelessly decadent (and flagrantly unfaithful) trophy wife. In a clever segue, some of the grisly footage is aired more than six decades later on a true-crime TV series. Riot sequence climaxes with the mad doctor and his nurses getting a taste of their own medicine while a home-movie camera records the horror. Vannacutt (Jeffrey Combs) and his associates were especially fond of operating on patients without using an anesthetic. Remake begins on a genuinely unsettling note, as the inmates of a Depression-era insane asylum launch a bloody rebellion against the sadistic staffers who have long tormented them. Even more than the name change, Geoffrey Rush’s slyly allusive performance comes off as a wink-wink homage to the original pic’s star. In this version, the suavely sardonic host - known as Frederick Loren back when he was played by Vincent Price - is Stephen Price, the multimillionaire owner-designer of frightfully exciting amusement parks. Screenwriter Dick Beebe recycles a few key plot elements from Robb White’s 1958 scenario, but greatly expands upon the guests-in-a-haunted-house premise.
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