RETURN TO HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL - DVD review

In the beginning William Castle created "House on Haunted Hill," a campy 1959 horror romp starring Vincent Price. Forty years later Warner Bros. remade the film starring a campy Geoffrey Rush in the Vincent Price role. Now, in 2007 we've got WB's direct-to-video sequel to the remake, "Return to House on Haunted Hill." I'm afraid to ask what comes next: A remake of the remake or a sequel to the sequel of the remake? My brain hurts.

While we're pondering such momentous questions, let me remind you that some of the best things about the 1999 remake were a roller-coaster ride early on, Rush's over-the-top histrionics, and a really spooky setting. Although the film quickly devolved into a dreary CGI-laden extravaganza, the building in which everything took place was creepy as all get-out. Unfortunately, what with the older script having used up the roller coaster angle and dispatched Rush's character, the only component left to the new filmmakers was the setting. It's not enough.

To recap the '99 film, an eccentric millionaire offered a large sum of money to a group of people if they could spend a night in a haunted house, in this case the long-abandoned Vannacutt Psychiatric Institute for the Criminally Insane. Then he tried to scare them to death. The thing was, it wasn't long before everyone discovered that ghosts actually did haunt the old, rambling edifice, and the spirits of the people who died there (at the hands of the demented Dr. Richard Benjamin Vannacutt and in a 1931 patient revolt) came back to kill most of the guests for real.

In the present film, it's eight years later, and we meet Ariel Wolfe (Amanda Righetti), the sister of a woman, Sara, who survived the fright night in '99. But as the new story begins, Sara dies of a suspicious suicide. Ariel investigates and discovers that her sister was in possession of a journal written by the very doctor, Vannacutt, whose patients murdered him. (Dr. Vannacutt is played in reprise by the endearing Jeffrey Combs of "Re-Animator" fame.) In Vannacutt's journal, the doctor told where he hid a statue, the Bashomet idol, which radiates evil and caused all the mischief in the first place. Sometimes, it's best for a movie not to explain too much; this idol business is a cheap trick better left to old movie serials of the 1930s.

Apparently, the statue is worth a fortune because everybody wants to get their hands on it, including a professor of archaeology, Dr. Richard Hammer (Steven Pacy), who's been searching for it for twenty years; plus a pack of mean, nasty cutthroats and their leader, a mean, nasty archaeologist named Desmond (Erik Palladino). So the gang of crooks kidnap Ariel and a friend, Paul (Tom Riley), and head out to the old hospital in search of the statue, with Professor Hammer, his friend Michelle (Cerina Vincent), and a college student, Kyle (Andrew-Lee Potts), coincidentally showing up at the same time and bent on the same mission.

This is the film's way of getting everybody together in the old building so the fun can start. Too bad it takes so long to begin, though, because it's already a third of the way into the story before anything even remotely interesting happens.

You can guess the rest. The designers of the building built it to lock down in case of a patient uprising, and that's exactly what happens as soon as the characters enter it. Nobody can leave. From then on, it's pure "Friday the 13th" cliché territory.

"The statue belongs in a museum, not in the hands of some private collector," says Dr. Hammer to the nefarious Desmond. Does that line sound like one from any other movie you've seen? What with the characters splitting up and going in different directions, the character of Desmond being a fellow archaeologist, his name sounding rather wimpy for a villain, and the name "Hammer" being an obvious tribute to Hammer Films, so popular in horror circles of the 1950s ,'60s, and '70s, I began thinking maybe "Return to House on Haunted Hill" was supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek homage to all our old action and horror-movie favorites. But, alas, the film is far too grim and straightforward for such sly distinctions. Did you ever see "Ghost Ship" or "Thir13en Ghosts"? Same deal.

So, what we've got is a group of people--some of them good, some of them bad--locked up in a haunted house. Any bets on who dies first? The ghosts start coming out slowly, but the scares come not at all. The creepiness of the crumbling clinic quickly becomes old hat, and there are no characters to care about. Therefore, one's only diversions in watching the movie are wondering how viciously the characters will die (some of the deaths are pretty gory) and guessing the order of their demise.

Oh, and a couple of the ghosts are quite comely and wear little or no clothes, which is gratuitous nudity, to be sure, but at least gives some viewers a reason to wake up. Then what little the movie has going for it falls apart completely at the end.

In fairness, the production values in "Return to House on Haunted Hill" are relatively high for a direct-to-video product; the acting is forgettable but not embarrassing; and for a moment, at least, the atmosphere of the old asylum can creep a person out. Otherwise, there's not much here worth discussing.

The version of the movie I watched was unrated due to nudity, profanity, and intensely violent deaths.

Video:
Warner Bros. released this video-première product in a wide ratio, 2.40:1 (measuring about 2.28:1 across my screen, given a small degree of overscan). What's more, they transferred it to disc at a high bit rate and enhanced it for widescreen TVs, so the video quality is quite good. The filmmakers intentionally muted the colors, the hues often leaning toward a bluish tint inside the clinic, and the images are well defined, with good inner detailing for an SD release. In addition, the screen is as clean and clear as you could want it, making a fine overall presentation.

Audio:
The soundtrack is far more subtle than I would have thought for this kind of movie. While the bass is deep and the rear-channel effects are effective, there isn't an overabundance of either one. The stereo spread is decent, and nothing much happens in any of the channels until the movie begins to warm up. Even then, don't expect a lot. Which, I might add, I find preferable to a deafening soundtrack filled with loud crashes and egregious rock music.

Extras:
First up we have a "Character Confessionals" gallery, a series of eighteen segments lasting about sixteen minutes in which each of the characters tells us about his or her motivations for entering Hill House. Then there's a three-minute featurette, "The Search for an Idol: Dr. Richard Hammer's Quest," in which the good doctor gives us a history of the Bashomet idol. Following that we have four additional (deleted) scenes in anamorphic widescreen, about eight minutes' worth; and a three-minute music video, "Simple Survival," with Mushroomhead. At least these extras are all in step with the tone of the film.

Things wrap up with twenty-two scene selections but no chapter insert; a promo for "Blade Runner" at start-up; English and Spanish spoken languages; English, French, and Spanish subtitles; English captions for the hearing impaired; and a slipcover for the keep case.

Parting Shots:
There aren't a lot of reasons for watching "Return to House on Haunted Hill" except maybe to relive the atmosphere of the old insane asylum and to see Jeffrey Combs reprise his role as the demented Dr. Vannacutt. Most of it is standard fright-flick fare, with almost no emphasis on the "fright."