House on Haunted Hill – Film Review

A millionaire with theatrical tendencies, Stephen Price (Geoffrey Rush) invites a number of people to stay in a vast creepy building that used to be an insane asylum. Stephen, accompanied by his bitter wife, Evelyn (Famke Janssen), offers a million dollars to anyone who can stay the whole night without leaving out of fear. When Stephen and Evelyn become trapped with their guests, they quickly realize that the house really is haunted — and the spirits dwelling within are very angry.

By the time William Malone‘s 1999 adaptation of House on Haunted Hill comes to a close, you will feel as if your brain has melted out of your skull completely. This is a horror film, and so based on that description, you may think that that’s a compliment to the film. It’s not. As a matter of fact, it’s the exact opposite.

When watching this crazy, outlandish ride, you’ll often find yourself questioning whether or not this movie is even real. That may sound silly, but it’s true. I’m still a little confused as to how this film even got made, because of how off-the-wall insane it is. And boy oh boy is it ever cheesy too.

To be honest, this just may be the cheesiest horror film I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying a lot since I have seen a ton (and I even wrote a book about horror films). House on Haunted Hill actually starts off fairly strong, setting up the pieces quite nicely. It seems like it’ll be a good old, fun haunted house mystery film.

But what it turns into is an outrageously strange, confusing, and utterly insane horror film that will leave you scratching your head and laughing hysterically every few minutes. Dick Beebe‘s script is the sole problem here. It is definitely bold and daring, but that’s also its biggest crutch.

There are so many ideas that Beebe threw onto the paper but not all of them stick. Most of them don’t. The first act isn’t anything amazing or anything, but it does do a fine job of getting us, the viewer, invested in what’s going to happen for the rest of the movie.

A group of people are inside of an infamously haunted house, and they have only each other to rely on. Sounds like a creepy, cozy watch, right? Nope. But you’d be forgiven for thinking that’s what it was going to be. It’s complete madness to watch the story unfold before your very eyes.

Almost all of the acting and line delivery here is also utterly awful, making it next to impossible to suspend disbelief for even a couple of minutes. I’m sure all of these actors are quite good in other projects, but they definitely didn’t get good direction from Malone here.

House on Haunted Hill starts off strong before quickly turning into one of the most outrageously dumb and unintentionally hilarious horror films of all-time.