House on Haunted Hill (1999)
Country: US
Technical: Technicolor 93m
Director: William Malone
Cast: Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Peter Gallagher
Synopsis:
A theme park impresario invites sundry guests to a birthday party for his wife, to be held in an infamous former lunatic asylum, with a view to scaring them out of their wits. Unbeknownst to him, the house has itself fixed the guest list so that the descendants of the erstwhile staff might repay the many injustices wreaked by their namesakes.
Review:
Haunted house farrago with nods to William Castle, Fright Night, House, Poltergeist, et al. Which is another way of saying it's derivative nonsense with even Rush's talents relatively wasted. There are, however, some effectively creepy shock moments, with ghoulish apparitions and dismemberment to the fore; only a pity it never quite matches the zealous offensiveness of its asylum revolt pre-credit, though there is a nice touch whereby Rush's character is given a taste of his own rollercoaster sadism.
Country: US
Technical: Technicolor 93m
Director: William Malone
Cast: Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Peter Gallagher
Synopsis:
A theme park impresario invites sundry guests to a birthday party for his wife, to be held in an infamous former lunatic asylum, with a view to scaring them out of their wits. Unbeknownst to him, the house has itself fixed the guest list so that the descendants of the erstwhile staff might repay the many injustices wreaked by their namesakes.
Review:
Haunted house farrago with nods to William Castle, Fright Night, House, Poltergeist, et al. Which is another way of saying it's derivative nonsense with even Rush's talents relatively wasted. There are, however, some effectively creepy shock moments, with ghoulish apparitions and dismemberment to the fore; only a pity it never quite matches the zealous offensiveness of its asylum revolt pre-credit, though there is a nice touch whereby Rush's character is given a taste of his own rollercoaster sadism.
Country: US
Technical: Technicolor 93m
Director: William Malone
Cast: Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Peter Gallagher
Synopsis:
A theme park impresario invites sundry guests to a birthday party for his wife, to be held in an infamous former lunatic asylum, with a view to scaring them out of their wits. Unbeknownst to him, the house has itself fixed the guest list so that the descendants of the erstwhile staff might repay the many injustices wreaked by their namesakes.
Review:
Haunted house farrago with nods to William Castle, Fright Night, House, Poltergeist, et al. Which is another way of saying it's derivative nonsense with even Rush's talents relatively wasted. There are, however, some effectively creepy shock moments, with ghoulish apparitions and dismemberment to the fore; only a pity it never quite matches the zealous offensiveness of its asylum revolt pre-credit, though there is a nice touch whereby Rush's character is given a taste of his own rollercoaster sadism.