The House on Haunted Hill

House on Haunted Hill is one of the new breed of waste-no-time thrill machines, like Deep Blue Sea, and a particularly effective example at that. The plot is pure contrivance: For a party stunt, a wealthy amusement-park manufacturer (Geoffrey Rush) offers five people a million dollars if they spend the night in a former insane asylum where the patients murdered the sadistic staff. But it turns out the five people who arrive aren't the five he invited--did his wife (Famke Janssen), who hates him, make the switch? From there events unfold with a smart combination of human and supernatural machinations; spooky jolts are dispensed at regular, but not entirely predictable, intervals. The visual effects owe a considerable debt to Jacob's Ladder, a much more ambitious movie; House on Haunted Hill just wants to get under your skin, and succeeds more than you'd expect. Rush is his entertainingly hammy self; Janssen, Taye Diggs, Ali Larter, and Bridgette Wilson are attractive and reasonably straight-faced about it all; and Chris Kattan is genuinely funny as the house's neurotic owner. Some elements of the plot seem to have been lost in the editing process, but it hardly matters. More bothersome is that the scares go flat when computer effects take over at the end--the digital images just aren't as creepy as the more suggestive stuff that came before. But that's just the very end; most of the movie has a lot of momentum. Watch until the end of the credits for a final bit of eeriness. --Bret Fetzer

Theatrical International release dates:
Europe: Feb 4, 00
Japan: Jul 22, 00
Australia: Feb 10, 00

Movie Details

Cast: Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Taye Diggs, Peter Gallagher, Chris Kattan, Ali Larter, Bridgette Wilson, Max Perlich, Jeffrey Combs, Dick Beebe, Slavitza Jovan, Lisa Loeb, James Marsters, Jeannette Lewis, Janet Tracy Keijser
MPAA Rating: R
Running time: 93 min
DVD Aspect Ratios: 1.37:1

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DVD Features:

Director Commentary

A Tale Of Two Houses

Deleted Scenes

Behind The Screams

Scenes From Escape From The House

Essays

Scene Access

Trailers

Web Events

Chat Room Access

International rating:

Europe: 18
Australia: MA

DVD International release dates:
North America: Feb 3, 04