RETURN TO HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL - HD DVD review

Note: In the following joint HD DVD review, John and Tyler both wrote up their comments on the film, and John wrote up the Video, Audio, Extras, and Parting Shots.

The Movie According to John:
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 was afraid to ask what came next: A remake of the remake or a sequel to the sequel of the remake?

Well, the answer to what came next is a do-it-yourself version of the movie. As a bonus on the HD editions of "Return to House on Haunted Hill," there is a unique navigational system that allows the viewer to choose which characters will live or die and how the story will end. I was wondering how long it would take for an enterprising studio to use a branching feature like this one for interactivity in the film itself. The result, if you elect to use the system, is to make a movie that already resembles a video game seem even more like a video game. It doesn't make the movie any better, mind you, but it definitely makes it different.

Anyway, as we're pondering this historic disc feature, let me take a minute to remind you of several of the best things about the previous, 1999, remake, namely, 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. (The endearing Jeffrey Combs of "Re-Animator" fame reprises his role as Dr. Vannacutt.) 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 any 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 nary at all. The creepiness of the crumbling clinic quickly turns 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 (in the original version).

Oh, and a couple of the ghosts are quite comely and wear no clothes, which is gratuitous nudity, to be sure, but gives some viewers a reason to wake up and take notice. Then what little the movie has going for it falls apart completely by 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 regular HD DVD version of the movie is unrated due to nudity, profanity, and intensely violent deaths. The special-feature version of the movie is also unrated for the same reasons, but possibly more so. See the "Extras" below.

The Film According to Tyler:
"Return to House on Haunted Hill" treads on such familiar territory as the original remake that it almost acts as a tour guide to the far superior 1999 film. Even though the first film cleaned up at the box office, the final act's change in tone and revelation of a cheesy CGI Rorschach ghost left a sour taste in most viewers' mouths. With the exception of the always available yet consistently engaging Jeffrey Combs, none of the original cast returned in the sequel. Which isn't too surprising considering the only survivors of the first film were Taye Diggs and Ali Larter, who have both gone on to bigger and more high-profile projects than this straight-to-DVD flick.

While we should expect little from a sequel to an eight-year-old remake of a film from 1959, "Return" offers even less. In fact, halfway through the film it feels like the creators simply ran out of ideas, and most of the characters just drag the lifeless script through another forty minutes of wasted time. With the exception of a wonderfully brutal "face lift" by Comb's Dr. Vannacutt, nothing of note occurs during the short, yet painfully long eighty-one minutes the film shuffles through.

You're far better off picking up the enchanting and fun 1959 original "House on Haunted Hill," featuring Vincent Price at the top of his flamboyant game. Not much good can be said about a film that completely squanders the talents of the brilliant Jeffrey Combs, but at least this time Chris Kattan's ghost doesn't make an appearance.

Video:
Warner Bros. released this video-première HD DVD movie in a wide ratio, 2.40:1 (measuring about 2.28:1 across my screen, given a small degree of overscan). What's more, the high-definition, VC-1 video quality is quite good. The filmmakers intentionally muted the colors, the hues often leaning toward a bluish tint inside the clinic, yet they are still natural looking. There is no bright glassiness, at least. The 1080 resolution defines the images well, with slightly soft but realistic inner detailing. The screen is also as clean and clear as you could want it, a light film grain giving the picture a realistic texture. The outside of the house looks more unreal than ever in high-def, but, overall, this is a fine HD presentation.

Audio:
The Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 soundtrack is far more nuanced than I would have anticipated for this kind of movie, and, as we have come to take for granted, the DD+ track sounds better focused and more robust than regular Dolby Digital. The low end on this one really rumbles. As a matter of fact, I could probably have done with a little less bass, although I'm sure it will please most listeners. The filmmakers use the surrounds to good effect, too, for more than just fright noises; there are also a lot of subtle sounds like creaking doors and echoing hallways. The stereo spread is decent, and when the movie begins to warm up we get an abundance of weird but never overpowering sonics. Which, I might add, I find preferable to a deafening soundtrack filled with loud crashes and egregious rock music.

Extras:
The best part of the HD DVD (and Blu-ray disc) is the exclusive "Play Movie Your Way" bonus, which allows the viewer the choice of using a series of branching options. At start-up, you choose between watching the regular movie or watching the movie your own way. Using the branching options requires a moment's wait while the program loads, and then you start viewing as usual. However, during various point in the film, the disc stops and gives you the choices of leading the characters in new directions: Should so-and-so answer the phone, should this person resist a temptation, should that person save another person's life or go after a map, etc. According to the disc insert, there are ninety-six possible story lines, although I think in my own experience I only went through about a dozen variations I could remember from the regular plot. It will please some viewers that if you make the right choices, there is more sex and nudity involved, and there is at least one choice that ends the film prematurely with everybody dying. If you're not sure you like the direction the movie is taking, you can always back up and make a different choice. Or you can watch the whole movie over again with brand-new choices. Understandably, there are no scene selections available for the optional movie.

In addition to the do-it-yourself feature, the HD DVD extras include the same ones found on the SD edition, and they remain in standard-def: First, there is 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, about eight minutes' worth; and a three-minute music video, "Simple Survival," with Mushroomhead. You'll notice that the tone of these extras is in step with the tone of the film, a nice touch.

Things wrap up with twenty-two scene selections on the original version but no chapters listed on the disc insert; English as the only spoken language; French and Spanish subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired. As always with a Warner Bros. HD DVD, there are pop-up menus, bookmarks, a zoom-and-pan feature, an indicator of elapsed time, and an Elite Red HD case.

Parting Shots:
I can't think of any serious reasons for watching the regular version of "Return to House on Haunted Hill" except maybe to relive the atmosphere of the old insane asylum, to see Jeffrey Combs reprise his role as the demented Dr. Vannacutt, or, of course, to have something with which to compare the do-it-yourself movie. No matter which version you choose, though, most of the film is standard fright-flick fare, with almost no emphasis on the "fright." But at least the "Play Movie Your Way" option helps you to stay awake.

Incidentally, my "Film Value" rating here is for the regular version of the movie. The optional, do-it-yourself movie would merit a slightly higher score depending on how much you enjoy these sorts of things.