House on Haunted Hill (1999)

A millionaire offers a group of diverse people $1,000,000 to spend the night in a haunted house with a horrifying past.

Director:

William Malone

Writers:

Robb White (story), Dick Beebe (screenplay)

Stars:

Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Taye Diggs

1 win & 2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Geoffrey Rush	...	Stephen H. Price
Famke Janssen	...	Evelyn Stockard-Price
Taye Diggs	...	Eddie Baker
Peter Gallagher	...	Donald W. Blackburn, M.D.
Chris Kattan	...	Watson Pritchett
Ali Larter	...	Sara Wolfe
Bridgette Wilson-Sampras	...	Melissa Margaret Marr (as Bridgette Wilson)
Max Perlich	...	Carl Schecter
Jeffrey Combs	...	Dr. Richard Benjamin Vannacutt
Dick Beebe	...	Male Nurse
Slavitza Jovan	...	Twisted Nurse
Lisa Loeb	...	Channel 3 Reporter
James Marsters	...	Channel 3 Cameraman
Jeannette Lewis	...	Price's Secretary
Janet Tracy Keijser	...	Girl on Wires

Storyline

When an eccentric millionaire offer a group of opposites $1,000,000 to spend the night in a so called "Haunted House" with a murderous past, they figure it is a quick way to get quick money and leave. All of them are sure it is some made up story just to mess with their heads a little and test their courage. But, once they stay in the house they start to think about the mistake they made in coming there when mysterious things start to happen.

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Plot Keywords:

haunted house | money | doctor | stranger | ghost | 

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Taglines:

Are You Dying To Be Rich?

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Genres:

Horror | Mystery | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for horror violence and gore, sexual images and language

Details

Official Sites:

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. (alternate)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

29 October 1999 (USA)

Also Known As:

A Casa da Colina

Filming Locations:

Griffith Park - 4730 Crystal Springs Drive, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$19,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£1,068,862 (UK) (4 February 2000)

Gross:

£3,469,882 (UK) (10 March 2000)

Company Credits

Production Co:

J&M Entertainment, CLT-UFA International, Dark Castle Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

93 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The first person to be killed in the movie is screenplay writer Dick Beebe.

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Goofs

At the end, when the two look at the million dollar cashier checks, all five documents have the same serial number.

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Quotes

Steven H. Price: Come on honey, let's go down and meet your guests.
Evelyn Stockard-Price: You go ahead darling, I'm just going to run scolding
[sic]
Evelyn Stockard-Price: hot water over the places you just touched me.

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Crazy Credits

The Warner Bros. logo is grey in color and is surrounded by thunder and lightning.

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Connections

Referenced in Rose Red (2002)

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Soundtracks

"Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)"
Written by Annie Lennox and David A. Stewart (as Dave Stewart)
Performed by Marilyn Manson
Courtesy of Nothing/Interscope Records
Under License from Universal Music Special Markets

User Reviews

Grisly update takes few prisoners

HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL

Aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Sound formats: Dolby Digital / DTS / SDDS

Six strangers are invited to a 'haunted house' party at a former asylum

• the scene of a massacre many years earlier, when inmates rebelled

against the psychotic chief surgeon (Jeffrey Combs) - and the guests are assailed by restless spirits with a murderous agenda...

This remake of William Castle's 1959 shocker was the first title in a projected series by Dark Castle Entertainment, a genre outfit established by the creative personnel behind HBO's "Tales from the Crypt" (Robert Zemeckis, Joel Silver and Gilbert Adler) as a platform for the 'revision' of Castle's entire oeuvre. Working from Robb White's original story, screenwriter Dick Beebe and director William Malone - previously responsible for such unassuming B-movies as SCARED TO DEATH (1980) and CREATURE (1985) - remain faithful to Castle's original whilst goosing the material with newfangled effects technology and levels of gore which Castle had been denied during his lifetime. Production designer David F. Klassen has also updated the eponymous house, a clifftop monstrosity whose plunging Art deco exterior masks the Gothic ruin within, haunted by monstrous spirits who 'come alive' and terrorize a cast of defiantly modern characters, including Geoffrey Rush as a cynical fairground entrepeneur (clearly modelled after Vincent Price), and Famke Janssen as his beautiful, bitchy, duplicitous wife.

The film's uneven tone (veering between horror and humor and back again) is likely to divide viewers from the outset, but the horror scenes are played with remarkable gravity, and attentive viewers will spot visual references to the likes of GHOST STORY (1981) and JACOB'S LADDER (1990), particularly a 'guest appearance' by one of the most hair-raising phantoms from that former title. Some of the original film's charm has been lost along the way, replaced by profanity and splatter (though not as much as some outraged critics would have you believe), and there's nothing in the remake which compares to the blood-freezing shock induced by Carol Ohmart's encounter with a blind, white-haired ghost in Castle's version, but Malone's update deserves a mark for trying. Also starring Bridgette Wilson, Peter Gallagher, Ali Larter and the ultra-beautiful Taye Diggs, alongside comedian Chris Kattan, here playing it impressively straight in a role originally essayed by Elisha Cook Jr.