House on Haunted Hill

January 16, 2005

Rated: R Runtime: 115 min Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

As cheezy horror flicks go, this one isn’t bad. It delivers exactly what you’d expect based on the trailers and marketing. Nothing more. Nothing less.

The trick to coming up with a premise for these haunted house movies is how do you come up with a plausible reason for several would-be victims to enter a house that no one in their right mind would go into for less than three Scooby-snacks. This one actually has some originality. Steven Price, played by Geoffrey Rush, is the owner of several terror based amusement parks and is an absolute master of using special effects to scare the hell out of his patrons. However, he hates his wife and she doesn’t seem too fond of him either. So when she comes up with an idea for her birthday party, he turns it around and into something twisted and scary.

The “house” is actually an old hospital for the criminally insane. The doctor went crazy back in the 1930’s and killed all of his patients. Their spirits are supposedly still there. The house has been recently refurbished and is rented to Price and his wife for their little party. The guest list gets twisted around, but the premise ends up being that anyone who stays thru the night and makes it out alive gets a million bucks.

What follows is typically haunted house horror movie fair. But it is done with some decent modern day effects, and there are some really nice twists along the way. This is one of those movies that tries to keep you guessing as to what’s real, and it does a decent job.

The stars of this movie are… Well, as The Rock says “IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT THEIR NAME IS!”. Let’s face it, there are no big name stars and no one is getting an Oscar off of this movie. It’s a booger movie, the star is the booger, in this case the house and it’s ghostly effects. My biggest fault with the movie is they included some decent babeage and kept them completely clothed the entire time. We do get some glimpses of tah tahs during some psychotic episodes, but nothing good.

I can’t say I would consider this movie scary, I don’t even remember jumping when they try to startle the audience. However, if the reaction of the girl in front of me was any indication at least some people will find this pretty intense. Only herself and whoever does her laundry will know for sure. This movie only rates two stars overall as this is one that can most certainly wait for video. However, if you’re in the mood for a good old fashioned booger movie this one fits the bill very nicely.

Posted by Billy Bob | Filed Under 2 Stars, Ali Larter, DVD, Famke Janssen, Geoffrey Rush, Horror, Lisa Loeb, Peter Gallagher, R