rated r for horror violence and gore , language and some nudity . starring : geoffrey rush , famke jansen , ali larter , brigette wilson , taye diggs , chris kattan , lisa loeb , james marsters . running time : 115 minutes so here is the second of 1999's remakes of classic horror movies . the first was the dumb , pathetic but ok remake of the classic 'the haunting' . now comes the highly awaited remake of house on haunted hill . the classic which starred vincent price as a man who pays a group of people 100 , 000 to stay in his house . if they survive the night they get the money . if not well you get the jurisdiction . having not yet seen the film ( dvd on its way ) i wasn't sure if i would really like the remake . but sure enough it comes through and has a great storyline to fall back on . geoffrey rush ( in a fantastic role with an incredible performance ) is steven price , the owner of an amusement park destined to scare the wits out of people . his wife evelyn price is throwing a party with her friends . steven dismays at the idea and makes his own list . somehow someone , or something changes that list and five other people are invited to the party . eddie ( taye diggs ) an ex-baseball player , sarah ( ali carter ) an ex-assistant who can re-wire anything , melissa ( brigette wilson ) a talk-show host in sorts , dr . blackburn ( peter ghallager ) , and watson ( chris kattan ) a smart-mouthed humorist in ways . what he is gonna do is pay these five people 1 , 000 , 000 dollars if they can survive through the night . if they can they get the money , if not well they don't . the house on haunted hill used to be an insane asylum . years before mental patients broke out and killed the dr . there , forcing him to lock the place up because if he died , so did they . everyone who was in there burned to death . now it is steven price's home and he is throwing this party for these five people . what starts out as a seemingly normal night , turns into a horrifying , blood splattering night . the deep dark secrets of what really happened in that asylum and why those guests are actually there are revealed . one-by-one the people start to disappear . conspiracies start to turn up , and steven price finds out that his house may be alive after all . the people find rooms , which once held mental patients . rooms which once had people dying . rooms which may still contain these people . now these five people must try and survive the night and try and survive the house , and they must survive each other with terrorfying results . since i officially haven't seen the original i can't say which is better . i can say however i liked this movie . geoffrey rush gives a one in a million performance as the rich steven price , and does a great job doing a vincent price role . famke jansen as his wife was great and even kind of eerie at times . ali carter and taye diggs sort of become the main characters and ali carter who debuted in varsity blues gives a fantastic performance here as does taye diggs . chris kattan gives us great comic relief and the movie contains a lot of comical lines . peter ghallager and brigette wilson were great as well and gave commanding performances as potential victims . the plot was well conceived and was very absorbing . the movie has atmosphere the whole way through that is disturbing and creepy , and even sometimes downright scary . i found even the opening credits to me a little ominous . one thing i knew not to expect was a 'haunting' type movie with special effects galore . even though it had fantastic gore and special effects , the movie has only a 19 million dollar budget , which doesn's show all the way through but you can tell . the movie was written well , and it's only major flaw is the under-developed characters and plot holes that we are left with . the ending is quite clever and some may not even get it . i must say house on haunted hill was a surprise . i was expecting another haunting with special effects , no scares and a dumb ending . instead i found a good halloween movie with gore , scares and great acting . house on haunted hill is one of those movies you really can't take seriously . though it is a well-made movie with a good storyline it still has some flaws . but besides that the movie is fun , smart and scary and makes us wonder why remakes like this can't be made all the time ! reviewed by brandon herring october 28 , 1999 . brandon herring movie review heaven ( <a href= " http : //www . geocities . com/hollywood/movie/3160/moviereviewheaven . html " >http : //www . geocities . com/hollywood/movie/3160/moviereviewheaven . html</a> 
