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Review by Susan Granger
0 stars out of 4
What's scary about this picture is how many people went to see
it last weekend, proving two things: 1) you can't beat good timing,
and 2) when you have a creepy dud on your hands, don't let people know
it's coming - that's why critics were not permitted to view this film
before it opened. Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush (Shine) plays a nasty
amusement-park tycoon who invites four supposed strangers to help
celebrate his wife's birthday in the notorious Vanacutt Psychiatric
Institute for the Criminally Insane, promising "terror, humiliation,
perhaps even murder." He obviously detest her as much as she loathes
him. Rush is made-up to resemble Vincent Price, the star of William
Castle's campy 1958 version, including the pencil-thin mustache. His
character is even named Price, in case you missed the point. Anyway,
this eccentric host offers each of his jittery guests $1,000,000 at
daybreak - if they can survive the night. Directed by William Malone
from a screenplay by Dick Beebe, based on a story by Robb White,
there's little horror and zero originality. The villainous Vanacutt
was a demented doctor who performed hideous experimental surgery
without anesthesia until, once night, the inmates rebelled, igniting a
fire that destroyed the place - so we're told. Of course, the ghosts
still run rampant, causing death and destruction. Famke Janssen, Taye
Diggs, Ali Larter, Brigitte Wilson, Peter Gallagher, and Chris Kattan
look as though they fervently wished they were elsewhere. Heh! Heh!
Heh! So did I. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, The House on
Haunted Hill is a ghoulish, wretched 1. But the only thing frightening
about it is the waste of talent. If you thought The Blair Witch
Project was ridiculous, this is far worse.
Copyright © 2000 Susan Granger
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out of 4
