HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL 1999 TRAILER MOVIE
HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL 1999 TRAILER INSTALL

In 1999, Dark Castle Entertainment was formed by Joel Silver and Robert Zemeckis.

Castle strung plastic skeletons from theater ceilings to swoop around during screenings. ItвЂ™s worth a watch if only to see Price chew the admittedly cheap scenery ( ). Price uses some combination of traps and puppets to see his wife dispatched in a vat of acid. ItвЂ™s all a ruse to bring an end to a fractious marriage. For more on Castle see his memoir Step Right Up! IвЂ™m Gonna Scare the Pants Off America or the 2007 documentary, Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story, directed by Jeffrey Schwartz.ДЎ959вЂ™s House on Haunted Hill stars Vincent Price as a wealthy kook offering $10,000 to any party guests who can survive an overnight haunted house party held in his wifeвЂ™s honor. Castle would go on to direct over fifty features (and produce several dozen more) and is cited as a huge source of inspiration for filmmakers from Hitchcock to Zemeckis.

HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL 1999 TRAILER INSTALL

Most famously, he sent crews to install vibrating motors in theater seats for his 1959 film, The Tingler. Tickets to his first independently produced feature, Macabre (1958) came with $1000 life insurance policies in case audience members died of fright. As a filmmaker he is known as the master of the gimmick. A few years later, he leased a theater from Orson Welles and painted swastikas all over it to create a buzz around a play he had written in a weekend. Some here will be intimately familiar with William Castle, but for those who arenвЂ™t вЂ“ as a tween, he goaded Bela Lugosi into giving him a manager position with the Dracula stage play. This post will not attempt to expand on these elements but instead, aims to suggest that William MaloneвЂ™s вЂњremakeвЂќ of a 1959 William Castle film occupies an important, or at least an interesting place in horror history. Still, it was a nice break from the zombie films as I close in on the end of the chapter.IвЂ™ve spent considerable oxygen defending this filmвЂ™s creature effects, its shlocky acting, and its oddly paced, tensionless plot.

I watched the film from beginning to end, and didnвЂ™t see a single zombie or living dead creature, so perhaps this film would have been better suited for the next chapter, on ghosts. And amazingly, how can you cast both Lisa Loeb and James Marsters in the film, and donвЂ™t include them for the main body of the film, but just as set-up? Or cast Jeffrey Combs and give him no real dialogue? The shots, camerawork, and everything, including the edges of production value, are nowhere near as solid as they could be.

HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL 1999 TRAILER MOVIE

It could have been something amazing because who doesnвЂ™t love a horror movie set in an insane asylum? Add a fairly strong cast who are more than capable, and you should have something that wowed and scared.Д«ut the story falters, and the effects of theвЂ¦ darknessвЂ¦ are a cool idea, but poorly executed. And while the film is flashy, and has a fairly solid cast, Ali Larter has always been a favorite, there isnвЂ™t much in the way of characterization beyond the cardboard, and the story isnвЂ™t as well-written as it could be, the surprise twists arenвЂ™t really a surprise, and all the beats are fairly predictable. This was one of the first films of Dark Castle Entertainment, named for William Castle, and it wanted to invigorate the horror genre by remaking classic horrors from the 50s and 60s. It seems there are ghosts haunting the facility, and they are eager to take out their wrath on the visitors, but there is also something darker lurking in the asylumвЂ¦ and it may find its way out, and seek its own vengeance. Some one/thing changes the guest list, and a group of strangers join the dangerous party, Eddie (Taye Diggs), Sara (Ali Larter), Blackburn (Peter Gallagher), Melissa (Bridgette Wilson) and the propertyвЂ™s keeper, Pritchett (Chris Kattan).ДЄll the typical tropes are played out, separation of the characters, predictable jump scares, and desired moments that donвЂ™t happen. The concept itself is fun enough, an amusement park mogul, Stephen Price (Geoffrey Rush вЂ“ with his best Vincent Price mustache) who is keen to always frighten and titillate his audience, whether itвЂ™s with a new coaster, or scare tactic has organized a birthday party for his wife, Evelyn (Famke Janssen) at the site of a horrifying slaughter, a closed down insane asylumвЂ¦ the house on Haunted Hill. IвЂ™m not sure how this title, a remake of the classic 1959 William Castle film ended up in the zombie chapter of DK CanadaвЂ™s Monsters in the Movies book, as having just sat through this one, I donвЂ™t recall any zombies, or living dead.

House on haunted hill 1999 trailer