No Fright Tonight
Haunted Hill Pales as Remake

A director choosing to revisit a story must decide if he will bring a fresh perspective or pay homage to what has come before. But when homage turns to fromage (that is, cheese), one must decide if the remake was worth making. In the case of House on Haunted Hill, the ghosts of the original 1958 film should not have been disturbed.

Geoffrey Rush plays Stephen Price, a self-styled master of horror, who evidently gained his reputation creating thrill rides for amusement parks. On the occasion of his wife's (Famke Janssen) birthday, Price is throwing a scary party in the most ghastly of all places, an insane asylum where -- half a century before -- a mad doctor carried out grotesque experiments on the patients.

After Mrs. Price prepares her guest list, Mr. Price throws it away in favor of his own. But after he leaves, someone or something changes the list yet again. As a result, the four guests are strangers to the Prices (and to each other), each one promised $1 million if he or she can survive one night in the House on Haunted Hill. (Can't you just hear the cheesy music and thunder?)

This movie fails on so many levels, it's impossible to exactly nail down where it went wrong. The acting is over-the-top. The story itself is hokey. And all of the little details that should make it interesting are lost amid a story that can't decide which direction to go.

To his credit, Rush is fun as Steven Price, but his performance is little more than an imitation of Vincent Price who acted in the lead role in 1958. The worst addition to the cast is Peter Gallagher as Dr. Blackburn. Evidently Jeff Goldblum was unavailable or unwilling to do this picture, so the casting department did the next best thing. With Gallagher's wavy black hair and thick black glasses, he looks and acts like a cheap knock off of Goldblum's stereotypical scientist character (see Jurassic Park and Independence Day).

Two nice cameos appear in the early part of the film. Singer Lisa Loeb plays a television reporter interviewing Price about his latest roller coaster. Fans of television's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" may recognize her cameraman as James Marsters, who plays the vampire Spike on the series.

The story itself is never frightening, however. On a couple of occasions, it slips into the surreal, as when Melissa (Bridgette Wilson) watches through her camcorder as a doctor walks through an abandoned operating room. When she lowers the recorder, the room is empty. The moment is delightfully eerie, but the movie fails to capitalize on it.

Instead, House on Haunted Hill relies on special effects to dazzle the audience into submission. But the effects fail because -- as The Blair Witch Project recently showed -- sometimes it's more frightening to NOT see the monster. As a result, when the "evil" in the house finally comes to life, it is a letdown.

House on Haunted Hill had the advantage of opening on Halloween weekend, which no doubt contributed to its box office success. Although it doesn't provide much fright, it is mildly amusing in a cheap horror movie way. For seasoned horror fans, this movie will be a complete disappointment. For those who still get creeped-out by "Twilight Zone" reruns, this might give you a tingle or two.

MY RATING: 2 out of 10.

RATED: R
RUN TIME: 115 min.