Taglines: It’s going to be a long night.
House on Haunted Hill movie storyline. In 1931 the mental patients at the Vannacutt Institute for the Criminally Insane revolt against the staff headed by the sadistic Dr. Richard Vannacutt. The patients start a fire which engulfs the building, killing all of the inmates and all but five of the staff. In 1999, Evelyn Stockard-Price (Famke Janssen), a spoiled trophy wife, is in a disintegrating marriage with Steven Price (Geoffrey Rush), an amusement park mogul with a wicked sense of humor. At Evelyn’s insistence, Price leases the house from the owner, Watson Pritchett (Chris Kattan), for Evelyn’s birthday party.
Evelyn gives Price a lengthy guest list; he shreds it to spite her and then creates one of his own. Five guests arrive for the party – Jennifer Jenzen (Ali Larter), Eddie Baker (Taye Diggs), Melissa Margaret Marr (Bridgette Wilson), Dr. Donald Blackburn (Peter Gallagher), and Pritchett himself. The guests are not the ones Price invited and neither Evelyn nor Price know who they are. Despite this, Price continues the party’s theme, offering $1 million to each guest who stays in the house and survives until morning. Those who die forfeit their $1 million to the survivors.
The security gates are tripped, locking everyone inside. After finding some hand guns, Jennifer, Eddie and Pritchett decide to take one of the guns and search the basement for the machinery which controls the gates. Price believes the trap is a stunt organized by Evelyn. As Eddie and Jennifer explore the dungeon-like basement, Jennifer confesses to Eddie that her real name is Sara Wolfe, and that she’s an out-of-work assistant to the real Jennifer Jenzen. She attended the party in Jennifer’s place because she needed the prize money. However, the two are separated, and Sara is nearly drowned in a tank of blood by a ghost impersonating Eddie, though the real Eddie arrives in time to save her.
Melissa disappears when she wanders off in the basement, leaving behind a massive trail of blood. Price visits his assistant Schechter, who is supposed to be managing the party stunts, but finds him horribly mutilated. On the surveillance monitor he sees the ghost of Dr. Vannacutt walking around with a bloody scalpel. Shortly after, Evelyn dies in front of the others, when they find she has been strapped to an electroshock therapy table.
Furious, Price pulls a gun on the guests, demanding to know which one of them killed his wife. Sara nearly shoots him, but Eddie knocks him out before either one can kill the other. The remaining guests lock Price in the “Saturation Chamber”, an archaic device that Vannacut used to treat schizophrenics. Blackburn volunteers to stay behind to guard Price, but when the others leave he turns the chamber on, leaving Price to be tortured by the moving images and ghostly hallucinations until it drives him catatonic.
Meanwhile, Sara and Eddie find Vannacut’s office. Inside, they find a portrait of all the head staff and realize that all the party guests are descendants of the five surviving staff from the 1931 fire. Pritchett explains that the spirits themselves created the guest list by hacking into Price’s computer. The only exception is Blackburn, whose name does not appear amongst the staff.
House on Haunted Hill is a 1999 American horror film directed by William Malone and starring Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Taye Diggs, Ali Larter, and Jeffrey Combs. It also includes a cameo appearance by Peter Graves. The plot follows a group of strangers who are invited to a party at an abandoned asylum, where they are offered $1 million each by an amusement park mogul if they are able to survive the night. Produced by Robert Zemeckis and Joel Silver, it is a remake of the 1959 film of the same title directed by William Castle, and features special effects by famed make-up artists Gregory Nicotero and Dick Smith.
House on Haunted Hill marked the producing debut of Dark Castle Entertainment, a production company that went on to produce Thirteen Ghosts and House of Wax, two films which were also remakes. House on Haunted Hill premiered on Halloween weekend in 1999. In the tradition of William Castle’s theater gimmicks, Warner Bros. supplied promotional scratchcards to cinemas showing the film, offering ticket buyers a chance to win a money prize, similar to the movie’s characters. The film received middling reviews from major critics, but was a commercial success, opening number one at the box office and grossing over $40 million domestically.
House on Haunted Hill (1999)
Directed by: William Malone
Starring: Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Taye Diggs, Ali Larter, Bridgette Wilson, Peter Gallagher, Chris Kattan, Max Perlich, Lisa Loeb, Janet Tracy Keijse
Screenplay by: Dick Beebe
Production Design by: David F. Klassen
Cinematography by: Rick Bota
Film Editing by: Anthony Adler
Costume Design by: Ha Nguyen
Set Decoration by: Lauri Gaffin
Art Direction by: Richard F. Mays
Music by: Don Davis
MPAA Rating: R for horror violence and gore, sexual images and language.
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: October 29, 1999
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