'Haunted Hill' succeeds in homage to '50s horror

"House on Haunted Hill"

Directed by: William Malone

Starring: Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Taye Diggs, Chris Kattan, Peter Gallagher

Rated: R

Producer and director William Castle is legendary in B-movie history. His exploitation of the horror genre in the late 1950s through the early 1960s set standards for showmanship that have rarely been equaled.

For his 1958 horror classic "Macabre," he circulated insurance policies around theater lobbies, insuring viewers in case of death by fright. His "Percepto" gimmick for "The Tingler" was his crowning achievement. Selected seats in the movie house were wired to give the viewer a mild shock at key points during the film. For "House on Haunted Hill," the audience was treated to "Emergo," wherein a skeleton flew over the heads of the audience during related scenes. This was shocking stuff in the horror movie-crazed '50s.

For all of this P.T. Barnumesque behavior, it should also be noted that Castle gave Robert Mitchum his first role in a film (1944's "When Strangers Marry") and went on to produce the Roman Polanski classic "Rosemary's Baby" in 1968.

I preface the review of the remake of "House on Haunted Hill" with information about Castle because he is inextricably linked with the horror genre and the producers of this film pay tongue-in-cheek homage to the master.

Indeed, the main character, Steven Price, seems to have a few of Castle's personality traits, including his flair for the macabre. Price (the name is another homage, this one to Vincent Price, star of the original film) is the eccentric owner of a chain of amusement parks.

As the film opens we see him taking a reporter on a tour of his latest creation. As they are riding the elevator to the top of a new roller coaster, tragedy strikes. Or does it? Master showman Price is at work. The park also features mock disasters, designed to scare the living heck out of the unsuspecting real customers. These scenes are funny and quite clever.

Price is married to a woman who only loves him for his money. Whenever the two are together, one is reminded of the more vitriolic moments from "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

Mrs. Price sees a news story about an old insane asylum that still sits, unused, in Los Angeles and decides she wants her birthday party to be held there.

The film takes a brief flashback to the asylum in 1931 as run by Dr. Vanucutt, who performed bizarre experiments on his patients and filmed the proceedings. In the end, the inmates took over the asylum and nearly everyone there died in a horrible fire. The place is rebuilt, but no one utilizes it because bizarre things continue to occur. Some say the house itself is alive. If this sounds all too familiar, it's probably because you saw the recent remake of "The Haunting," which, outside of the set design, was perfectly dreadful. At least "House on Haunted Hill" never takes itself very seriously. It's a hoot and it knows it.

Price decides to have the party for his wife, but throws her guest list away, comes up with a gimmick to make the thing interesting and invites a few money-hungry folks of his own choosing to the combination party and endurance test. In one of the many befuddling plot points, Steven's guest list is replaced as well his computer types its own list and the folks that show up have no idea who Price is or why they are there.

The question is soon answered. Price is willing to pay $1 million to any of the guests who spend the entire night in the house and live to tell about it.

He, of course, has rigged the place and has one of his techno-geeks pulling the strings of an elaborate horror hoax.

But something goes awry. Things begin to happen that Price has not orchestrated, and when he goes to check on his effects wizard, he finds him dead.

The plot twists then start to come fast and furious. The house may actually be alive. Price may be trying to kill his wife, and she might be trying to kill him. Since she didn't really know any of the guests, why is she having an affair with one of them? Why doesn't everyone just band together and stay put? How on Earth could they run out of Scotch?

My advice is this: Don't try to figure anything out or to make things make sense. You'll be missing the point.

I suspect that most serious moviegoers will bypass "House on Haunted Hill," but for a certain segment of baby boomers who grew up with Castle, the films of Roger Corman and the great stuff from Hammer Films, and who still remember Forrest J. Ackerman's thrilling magazine "Famous Monsters of Filmland," this movie will be a pleasant diversion. Today's teens will probably like it as well. There's a sufficient amount of gore and cheesy special effects. This is another film that makes me long for a drive-in theater.

(Jim Wunderle works at Associated Video Producers and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician.)