House on Haunted Hill (1999 film)

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


A 1999 remake of the 1959 film, directed by William Malone and starring Geoffrey Rush, Taye Diggs, Ali Larter, and Jeffrey Combs. The setting for the fateful party is moved to an abandoned mental hospital, the Vannacutt Psychiatric Institute for the Criminally Insane, said to be haunted by the malevolent ghosts of the murderous inmates. The head of the facility, Dr. Richard B. Vannacutt, performed grotesque experiments on his patients, killing many in the process. The hospital was only closed when a handful of inmates escaped, killing almost the entire staff and setting fire to the facility, while security gates trapped everyone inside.

Fast forward to the present, where amusement park mogul Stephen Price is leasing this facility for the Halloween party of his spoiled trophy wife Evelyn. The five invitees are given a similar challenge as in the original movie, only the pot has been upped to $1,000,000 for any survivors, plus the winnings of any who do not survive having their earnings added to those of any remaining survivors. Soon after the party begins, the security gates are tripped, and the partygoers are trapped inside the facility with the insane spirits haunting the facility - including not only all the inmates, but also Vannacutt himself.

The remake marked the debut of Dark Castle Entertainment, which went on to produce Thir13en Ghosts and House of Wax, both also remakes of William Castle movies. It was followed by a sequel, Return to House on Haunted Hill, in 2007.

Tropes used in House on Haunted Hill (1999 film) include:
  • A Birthday, Not a Break: The events of the film occurred during Evelyn's birthday party. She is also killed by the evil of the house and consumed by it.
  • Abandoned Hospital
  • Amusement Park of Doom: Price plays with the line between "safe" thrills and "dangerous" thrills early on, when he sends guests for a ride on a roller coast that is designed to fling the train ahead of you off the track, leading you to (logically) believe that you're about to die horribly, only for your train to continue over the same stretch of track unharmed. He thinks the whole thing is hilarious.
  • Aw, Look -- They Really Do Love Each Other: Subverted with Steven and Evelyn Price. In spite of both of their repeated attempts to humiliate and kill the other, there are moments that hint their may have once been real love in the marriage. Steven seems genuinely distraught when he believes Evelyn has been murdered. Not only that Evelyn fearfully calls out for Steven right before she is consumed by the evil spirit of the house.
  • Backup From Otherworld: Pritchard, after having died, appears as a ghost to help the last two escape.
  • Black Dude Dies First: Averted. Eddie escapes with Sara. Played straight in the sequel.
  • The Blank: During Price's hallucination, The Blank shows up swimming through darkness. It has no eyes, no face, but a mouth. And fangs.
  • Bloodier and Gorier
  • Bloody Handprint: Prominently featured in the cover art.
  • Can You Hear Me Now?: Everyone has a cellphone. None of them work.
  • Chair Reveal
  • Closed Circle: This starts out apparently engineered, until it becomes quite clear that the sanitarium is calling the shots.
  • Creepy Basement: Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
  • Death by Genre Savviness: Pritchard.
  • Doomed Defeatist: Pritchard.
  • Enclosed Space
  • Face Revealing Turn: Hey, one of Price's guys, maybe can help us escHOLY GOD WHAT HAPPENED TO HIS FACE...
  • Genre Savvy: Pritchard. "The house is alive. We're all gonna die."
  • Haunted House: A madhouse, to be exact. On a hill!
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Though usually not a very heroic character, Price shoves Sarah out of the path of the resident Eldritch Abomination, and is consumed by the monster himself.
  • Ironic Hell: The last shot is of the spirits of Stephen and Evelyn Price still trapped in the asylum, being vivisected by patients for, one may assume, eternity.
  • Mad Scientist: Vannacutt.
  • Meaningful Name: Price. Also a Shout-Out.
  • On One Condition
  • The Place
  • Punny Name: The head doctor heavily into vivisecting is named Vannacutt (say with a Transylvanian accent).
  • The Remake
  • Screamer Trailer: A similar effect is used in-movie.
  • Sins of Our Fathers: The whole reason the house has called these particular guests is because all of them are descended from the sole survivors of the fire that destroyed the asylum. Except for Eddie (adopted) and Sarah (lied about her identity).
  • Too Dumb to Live: The character who wanders alone into the basement with a video camera.
    • To be fair, her character hadn't really seen any of the really horrific stuff going on in the house at that point and probably assumed the minor events so far were rigged by Price or had a logical explanation. By the time she realized the truth, it was already too late.
  • Under Crank
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