Return to House on Haunted Hill

The two versions of House on Haunted Hill are my favorite movies, so of course I was extremely unenthusiastic about a sequel to Malone’s version, (although admittedly curious). The film team, armed with a completely novice writer and an unimpressive director named Víctor García, sets out to ruin everything that William Malone crafted with his House on Haunted Hill.

I honestly can’t even believe that Dark Castle would allow an idea like this to even go beyond conception. Dark Castle has really gone downhill, not only are they now notorious for their over-the-top computer-effects-ramped ending sequences (at least in my mind), but their new projects are going over into non-genre territory and leaving behind what they set out to do with their films. And nobody likes horror sell-outs.

From the opening credits, you can already tell that the entire movie will turn into cliché ripped-off crap. The word effects during the credits mimic those used in Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead. The unoriginality continues when the characters in the movie refer to the institution as “Hill House” (The Haunting anyone?), and they don’t stop there.

The plot of the movie starts out cliché enough with a “let’s bring in the sibling” typical sequel plot and takes a turn for the even-worse with the addition of a bandit kidnapping side-plot. Apparently Sara (Ali Larter’s character from the first film) has been trying to contact her estranged sister, Ariel, to talk to her about something. Turns out that Sara somehow came to possess the ultra-mysterious “Vannacutt’s journal” and found out about some Baphomet idol, which is apparently the source of the house’s evil, (yes, really). So, Sara was killed by those money-hungry bandits because they want to find the idol in order to sell it for millions – apparently they’re treasure-hunters or something. Then they kidnap Ariel and bring her to the house.

Along the movie, Ariel encounters the obvious: a history professor searching for the idol, along with his slutty backstabbing girlfriend; the head treasure-hunting bandit guy, whose scripting is the most laughable thing this side of Terror Toons (although not in a fun-to-watch sort of way); a team of dumb backups for the head bandit, armed with guns, crappy costumes, and plenty of testosterone; a sappy guy who is probably “in love” with Ariel; and a couple more nameless somebodies.

The characters end up being locked-down in the house, (of course). Although this time the main character, Ariel, escapes and then chooses to go back inside after she realizes her lovey sidekick is still trapped. Not only did she decide to go back inside the house, but the locked-down front entrance actually opened up for her re-entry (and nobody else apparently noticed it).

As the movie progresses, the plot turns into a happy-ending driven “save the ghosts” story. This is due to the fact that this Baphomet statue is said to be the source of the house’s evil; so, basically, all the ghosts are really good people, deep-down. This comes complete with a scene in which the dead patients get their just revenge and attack Vannacutt at the end of the movie.

Everything that Malone created with the first film is completely ruined with this sequel. All of the ghost sound effects that made the first movie creepy were overused in this cheap-thrill movie; they actually become annoying after a while. Every surreal, creepy ghost scene was replaced with zombie-like cheap ghost thrills, too in-your-face to be creepy. If they wanted to go for “pop-out” ghost moments, the makers of this film could have taken a few notes from Ghost House Films. Also, and perhaps most upsetting, Vannacutt was featured so much in this movie and was so up-close and personal that he didn’t have a scary aura about him at all; he almost seemed like he was just a normal person walking around the house. And because of the stupid Baphomet story, we are made to believe that Vannacutt would have been a good doctor, had he not encountered the statue. To top it all off, instead of the awesomely mysterious saturation chamber, we are presented with lame patient treatment methods like “hydro-therapy”, where crazies were put in a giant tub of cold water (ooh, scary).

And then, not to be forgotten, are the lame flashback scenes, unmethodically mixed in with the scenes in nearly every room in the house. They are meant to show how various victims of Vannacutt met their demise. This movie is made up of so much cheesy backstory and dumbed-down plot that it’s impossible to imagine a genre-fan actually enjoying this flick.

It’s difficult not to describe every single aspect of this movie because everything about it finds some way to upset me immensely. From the first horribly cheap death scene to the Vannacutt fight scene (oh yes, I did say “fight scene”) and beyond, this movie is complete and utter garbage.

There are a few saving graces in this movie; although they’re not enough to make it good, however. The camera angles are generally well-done and the film coloring is nice. Maybe the majority of the budget was spent on film-editing and not on scripting, who knows? Also, the aerial views of the facility are actually nice and dramatic, especially when they’re coupled with the remixed versions of the theme song. It makes the movie seem important, as it should’ve been. Unfortunately, however, those are the good aspects of the movie.

So, to sum it up, this sequel takes one of the most notable modern horror classics and turns it into a boring, seen-it-all-before cheesefest of a story with the same typecast characters you’ve seen in every other uninspired horror sequel. The film does look nice and that makes it bearable to watch, and the ghost pop-outs are sort of scary. However, in my overall opinion, Return to House on Haunted Hill is just one more nail in the coffin for Dark Castle and is not recommended; now I can only wait to see how they will disappoint me next.