House on Haunted Hill (1999 film)

In 1931, the patients at the Vannacutt Psychiatric Institute for the Criminally Insane revolt against the staff, headed by the sadistic Dr. Richard B. Vannacutt. A fire erupts, killing the inmates and all but five of Vannacutt's staff. In 1999, Evelyn Stockard-Price is in a disintegrating marriage with Stephen Price, an amusement park mogul known for his elaborate pranks. At Evelyn's insistence, Price stages her birthday party at the abandoned hospital. Five guests arrive: baseball player Eddie Baker; former television personality Melissa Marr; physician Donald Blackburn; Sara Wolfe, a production assistant impersonating her former boss, Jennifer; and Pritchett, the building's owner. The guests are not the ones Price invited and neither of the Prices know who they are. Despite this, Price continues the party's advertised theme, offering $1 million to each guest who remains in the house until morning; those who flee or perish forfeit their $1 million to the others. The building's security system is tripped, locking everyone inside – a stunt which Price and Evelyn blame on each other. Jennifer, Eddie, and Pritchett search the labyrinthine basement for a control panel. Jennifer becomes separated from Eddie and is nearly pulled into a tank of blood by a doppelgänger impersonating him, but frees herself just in time when the real Eddie appears. Melissa disappears, leaving behind a trail of blood and a video camera showing her apparent murder. Price visits his assistant Schechter, who is overseeing the party stunts, but finds him horribly mutilated. On the surveillance monitor he sees an apparition of Dr. Vannacutt armed with a bloody saw. Evelyn seemingly dies in front of the others, strapped to an electroshock therapy table. Price pulls a gun on the guests, demanding to know who killed his wife, before they turn on him and lock him inside the "Saturation Chamber", an archaic zoetrope device that Vannacutt used to treat schizophrenics. Blackburn volunteers to guard Price. When the others leave, he turns the chamber on, leaving Price to be tortured by the moving images. In Vannacutt's office, Sara and Eddie find a portrait of the hospital's staff and realize that the Prices and invited party guests, with the exception of Blackburn, are descendants of the five survivors of the 1931 fire. Sara surmises that the spirits hacked Price's computer and altered the guest list. Blackburn and Evelyn are revealed to be lovers who faked Evelyn's death, plotting to frame Price and hoping one of the guests will kill him in self-defense. Fearing the guests are not yet motivated to turn on Price, Evelyn kills Blackburn, then releases a delirious Price from the Saturation Chamber. Sara, Eddie, and Pritchett discover that Evelyn's body is missing and return to the chamber, where they find Blackburn's decapitated corpse. Sara finds Price, covered in blood, and shoots him. Eddie and Pritchett arrive and bring Sara upstairs, after which Evelyn approaches Price to gloat. Price, protected by a bulletproof vest and posing as dead, attacks Evelyn, telling her that he had long known about her and Blackburn's affair, having bugged their house with cameras. As they scuffle, Evelyn is thrown through a decaying door, unleashing an evil, amorphous entity composed of the spirits of the house. The shape-shifting entity consumes Evelyn, killing her and adding her spirit to its mass. Price then discovers Melissa's dismembered body. The entity pursues Price up the staircase before engulfing Pritchett. Price has a sudden realization that the attic might house the mechanisms used to operate the lockdown system and flees there, followed by Sara and Eddie. Price opens an iron window guard in the attic, then sacrifices himself to give the others time to flee. Sara narrowly escapes, but the entity traps Eddie inside. As the entity menaces Eddie, he reveals he was adopted and, like Sara, not a descendent of the original staff. Pritchett's ghost opens the window guard, allowing Eddie to escape. Seated on the ledge, Eddie and Sarah find an envelope containing all five checks, made out to cash and signed by Price. They are relieved to have escaped and won the money but are stuck on the roof of the house, unsure of how to get down. In a black-and-white post-credits scene, the spirits of the 1931 patients are seen torturing the Prices, presumably doomed to eternal damnation in the afterlife. == Cast ==

Development House on Haunted Hill was the first film produced by American production company Dark Castle Entertainment. Joel Silver and Robert Zemeckis had discussed remaking William Castle's 1959 film as early as 1997. Malone stated that Rush was committed to the material and took the role seriously. Elizabeth Hurley was initially considered for the role of Evelyn Price, but by February 1999, Famke Janssen was ultimately cast in the part. Taye Diggs was subsequently cast as Eddie, the ex-professional baseball player attending the party, and agreed to appear in the film after Rush signed onto the project. Ali Larter, who had previously completed Varsity Blues (1999), was cast as Sara Wolfe, a woman who poses as her ex-boss, film executive Jennifer Jensen; the film marked Larter's third screen appearance. Saturday Night Live star Chris Kattan was cast as Watson Pritchett, the caretaker of the building. Terry Castle stated that Kattan was cast in the part for the sake of comic relief, and that the filmmakers allowed Kattan to "just [be] who he is." For the role of Dr. Vannacutt, the deranged head doctor of the hospital, singer Marilyn Manson was at one point considered, with exteriors of the house's driveway being shot in Griffith Park near the Griffith Park Observatory. Adler commented on the unorthodox nature of the house: "Instead of being a typical sort of haunted house, this [one] is much more modern, with a touch of Deco. It's not what you'd expect to see." Larter stated in an on-set interview: "The set is dark and dirty, and everyone's been sick, and [Taye Diggs] and Chris [Kattan] keep me laughing. We really have had a good time." The "Terror Incognita" roller coaster at Price's amusement park featured in the beginning of the film is actually The Incredible Hulk Coaster at Universal Islands of Adventure theme park at Universal Orlando Resort in Florida. The film was shot on 35 mm film stock, the negatives of which director Malone flashed in order to reduce the contrast of the picture, giving it a visual appearance similar to the film stock used in the early 20th century. with additional makeup design by Dick Smith in his last film credit. One of the monster figures featured in the film during Price's underwater hallucination sequence was a creation of Smith's that was intended to be used in Ghost Story (1981) but was ultimately not featured. Malone, struck by the appearance of the figure—which consisted of an eyeless, noseless human head with an enlarged mouth—was granted permission from Smith to use it in the film. The tentacular morphing mass of ghosts featured at the film's climax was designed by KNB Effects, and was inspired by the visuals of H.P. Lovecraft's novels, as well as resembling the Rorschach inkblots used in psychiatry. According to Malone, much of the visual elements were actually not computer-generated, and were actually made up of footage shot by the production crew, which was grafted together to form the mass. This included an exposition scene showing how Sara came to receive an invitation to the party: While working as a production assistant on a film set, Sara is fired by her boss, Jennifer Jenzen (played by Debi Mazar), the feisty vice president of a motion picture company. Two versions of the scene were shot, during which Sara hands Jennifer a bag delivered for her; inside is a music box with a jack-in-a-box-trigger which cuts the handler's finger. Jennifer throws the box in the garbage, and Sara discovers the invitation to Price's party inside of it. Another scene removed from the film last-minute, according to director Malone, was a scene in which Sara falls through a collapsing floor when she and Baker are being chased by The Darkness. After falling two stories below, Wolfe awakens in a subterranean crematorium filled with the ashes and corpses of the hospital's dead patients. There, she is attacked by reanimated corpses who rise out of the ashes, terrorizing her and tearing off her overcoat. As a result of the scene's removal, there remains a continuity error in the final cut of the film, in which Wolfe's overcoat disappears from her body in-between scenes. A final epilogue scene completing the Jennifer Jenzen story arc was also filmed, featuring Jennifer arriving at the house with a realtor, which she is to inherit. As she enters the front door, a bloodcurdling scream is heard, and the realtor is revealed to be Dr. Vannacutt. Director Malone said the scene ultimately was removed after the cutting of Jenzen's exposition scene, as well as for having a comical tone that did not fit with the rest of the film. All three deleted scenes from the film were included on the 2000 Warner Bros. Home Video release of the film on DVD in the bonus features section. == Music ==

The soundtrack for the film was commercially released on the label Varèse Sarabande, containing selections from the original score by Don Davis. Davis composed the film score and recorded it with an orchestra in a Seattle church. In order to lend the score a gothic quality, Davis intended to implement a pipe organ, but due to budgetary reasons instead used sampled organ pieces. Track listing The song "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" by Marilyn Manson is not on the soundtrack but plays during the scene lead up to the Asylum and end credits. == Release ==

Marketing In keeping with the spirit of William Castle's tradition of releasing each of his films with a marketing gimmick, Warner Bros. and Dark Castle supplied movie theatres with scratch-off tickets that would be given to moviegoers. The scratch-off ticket would give each patron a chance to win money, like the characters in the film. Dark Castle had originally intended to release each of their films with a gimmick much like Castle had done. They had considered releasing the remake Thirteen Ghosts in 3-D with special glasses similar to the ones used by the characters in the film. These plans were scrapped and House on Haunted Hill remains the only film released with a special marketing gimmick. The film premiered in Los Angeles on October 27, 1999, at the Mann Village Theater. Janssen, Kattan, Larter and Wilson were in attendance with director Malone, as well as producers Silver and Adler. In 2006, Warner reissued it as part of a double feature DVD paired with the original 1959 film. On October 9, 2018, Scream Factory released the film on Blu-ray for the first time in North America as a collector's edition featuring new interviews with Malone and other crew, among various other features. == Reception ==

Box office House on Haunted Hill was released theatrically in North America on October 29, 1999, screening at 2,710 theaters. earning over $15 million in sales. Its theatrical exhibition lasted 61 weeks. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "House on Haunted Hill is the kind of horror movie that's not a bit scary and quite a bit gross. Yet it's also mildly, even pleasantly, entertaining, at least by the diminished standard set by this summer's The Haunting ... [it] sets up hostile relationships between the characters, which allows the audience to wonder who is doing what to whom. Finding out is not so interesting, but getting there isn't so bad." Maitland McDonough of Film Journal gave the film a similar review, saying "The proceedings are all utterly conventional, but watching them unfold is mildly diverting if you're in the right frame of mind, as many moviegoers apparently were over the Halloween weekend," also favorably comparing the film to Jan de Bont's remake of The Haunting, which was released several months prior. Kim Newman, writing for Sight and Sound, praised the "try-anything approach of writer-director William Malone" and observed that the film "manages to respect the original's intentions far more than such recent remakes as the 1999 versions of The Mummy and The Haunting...  The mix of laughs, shocks and gruesomeness is much the same as in the two Tales from the Crypt movies, but Malone coaxes a slightly fresher flavour, taking on board the influence of David Fincher and even Lars von Trier." Eric Harrison of the Los Angeles Times praised the performances in the film, particularly those of Rush, Kattan, and Larter, but felt that the screenplay's tone was inconsistent, writing: "Humans do so many horrible things to each other in House on Haunted Hill that the ghosts don't stand a chance of keeping up, which may explain why the script makes such nitwits of the characters—if the spooks are going to make an impression, they need all the help they can get." Entertainment Weeklys Owen Gleiberman gave the film a B− rating, calling it "trash, but creepier than you expect." Joe Leydon of Variety gave the film a favorable review, noting its "cheap scares," but adding: "Given the irredeemable cheesiness of the original 1958 House on Haunted Hill, the makers of the remake had nowhere to go but up. So it's not exactly a stunning surprise to find the new horror opus is a slicker and scarier piece of work." Lawrence Van Gelder of The New York Times called the film "a sorry reincarnation" of the original, adding: "This film wastes the talents of actors like Geoffrey Rush and Peter Gallagher in hollow roles and relies heavily on its sets and special effects to do the work that should have been accomplished by its director and writer." The Austin Chronicles Marc Savlov echoed a similar sentiment, writing: "The nicest thing I can say about this remake of William Castle's 1958 shocker is that Geoffrey Rush, god bless him, sure can do a fine imitation of Vincent Price's original mustache, even better than John Waters'swhich is no mean feat." Accolades == Sequel ==

In 2007, the film was followed up with a direct-to-DVD sequel, Return to House on Haunted Hill, with Jeffrey Combs reprising his role as Vannacut and was released in both rated and unrated editions. The film had no involvement from William Malone and received poor reviews, mainly due to plot holes, continuity in the building design and various other features of the film, but it was praised for its state-of-the-art Blu-Ray feature in which the viewer can change the path of the story. == See also ==