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House on Haunted Hill (1999)
Runtime: 1 hr 36 mins
Synopsis: Steven Price (a very hammy Geoffrey Rush) is a wealthy amusement park owner who invites several strangers to his shrewish wife's birthday party, this year held in the abandoned Vannacutt Institute for the Mentally Insane. There, he offers a prize of one million dollars to each party-goer who... Steven Price (a very hammy Geoffrey Rush) is a wealthy amusement park owner who invites several strangers to his shrewish wife's birthday party, this year held in the abandoned Vannacutt Institute for the Mentally Insane. There, he offers a prize of one million dollars to each party-goer who can spend the entire night in the creepy and cavernous building. As Mr. and Mrs. Price play a bitter game of cat and mouse, the guests begin to think there are more ominous forces at work, especially after the body count begins to creep higher and higher. A remake of the 1958 low-budgeter starring Vincent Price. [More]
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Starring: Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Taye Diggs, Ali Larter, Peter Gallagher
Screenwriter: Dick Beebe
Story: Robb White
Producer: Gilbert Adler, Joel Silver, Robert Zemeckis
Composer: Don Davis
Reviews
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.
It's a cheesy throwaway horror flick, but it's a tight cheesy throwaway horror flick.
[It's] one of the great underrated horror flicks of the last decade. Yes, really.
Quarts of shiny blood are splashed around and numerous moans and groans pepper the soundtrack, but astonishingly, the movie never manages to provoke so much as a shudder.
There's a great deal of general creepiness, but the enterprise is undercut by a weak script, weak characters, and a too simple plot.
All the visual bravura doesn't fill in the gaping plot holes or generate any real frights.
Consistently inert -- even though the fee for successful housesitting has been raised to a million bucks a night.
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