House on Haunted Hill

Last year two haunted house remakes hit the theatres. One of which I had no interest in seeing. The other I had slight interest in, but was willing to wait for DVD. I have a kid and I end up watching her most of the time at night and my wife is not that big of a Horror fan, so a select few movies are the ones I get to see in the theater. These two could wait.

I ended up seeing "The Haunting" only out of a lack of anything else to watch. I was just as opposed to the re-making of this film as I was of "Psycho". I hate re-makes, unless they are done with love and respect (i.e. John Carpenters "The Thing", he obviously loves the original, it made the guest appearance in "Halloween" after all), so this I had very little interest in seeing. I wish I had avoided it as I have done to this day with the "Psycho" re-make.

Word of mouth for "The House on Haunted Hill" on the other hand was quite high. So out I ran to rent it and see how it was. I wasn't familiar with the original, at least I can't remember it if I had once seen it. I think that says worlds of how I feel about the original if I had seen it. But then out comes this thing, and well, what can I say? How about: "WEEEEE! That was fun!"

The story is almost the same as the original. A group of people are brought to an old "house" with the possibilties of winning one million dollars if they stay the night. The catch is that the place is haunted.***OLD MOVIE SPOILER*** In the original the place was not really haunted ***OLD MOVIE SPOILER DONE***. This time...well...watch it and find out just what is going on. I won't say it is not a set up, but then again I won't say it is.

One of the main things that this film has going for it is that it relies on character and atmosphere as much as it does special FX. I won't say that there is more of one than the other due to there being about equal doses of all. Probably the most horrifying part about this movie to myself was the fact that I actually really liked the Chris Katan character. For those who do not know him, he is a regular on that piece of regurgitated shit called "Saturday Night Live" here in the States. He is one of the worst things that show has turned out. But in this movie, he is great! I would love to see more of the guy doing these types of roles.

The rest of the cast does a decent job also. But he was the one big surprise.

The DVD looks great! The sound is really quite good also. If the movie doesn't mean squat to you, but you buy DVD's for the look and supplementals, then it looks as if you have another DVD to purchase! The extra stuff is plentiful and really quite informative. My only complaint is the labeling of some of the extras. You have no idea what you are going to go and view or read until you are there with some of the stuff. I am not just nit-picking here, I have heard others also complain of this. But oh well.

For you fans of the old version, this one does do the other justice. It keeps the old memory alive by not only doing a decent re-make , but also by mentioning the old version through out the supplemental materials. You also get the old films trailers. Very nice touch of class.

So if you enjoyed this movie, buy this! I plan to pick it up myself so that I can really dig into these extra bits!

Out of 5 asterix, I give it ****! The movie gets ***, but the great extras push this thing up to that ****.