Gore and a great looking cast highlights our feature today. It is really a can't miss plot...a haunted asylum in which demons stalk some babes and hunks. Today we look at 1999's "House on Haunted Hill," directed by William Malone. We have a mad scientist, too. Guess who? Yep...Jeffrey Combs! This film didn't get a lot of love in 1999, but anyone who sees it today loves it.
Stephen (Geoffrey Rush) is a promoter and amusement park designer. His frisky nymphomaniac wife, Evelyn (Famke Janssen) demands he throw her a party at a restored asylum. The asylum was shut down in 1931 after the lunatics rebelled against the staff. Everyone died, including the doctor who experimented and dissected the lunatics, Dr. Vannacutt (Combs). Uh oh...Evelyn's guest list is altered by the demons in the house and five seemingly unrelated schmucks are summoned. Here's the promotion. Stephen will give anyone who survives the night in the asylum a million bucks. Pritchett (Chris Kattan), who knows about the haunted activities, is pulled into the contest unwittingly.
Guests: Celebrity game show hostess, Melissa (Bridgette Wilson-Sampras), Sara (Ali Larter), former baseball player Eddie (Taye Diggs), and a doctor, Blackburn (Peter Gallagher). Soon the demons start playing havoc. They seal all the doors and windows and the guests scamper into the basement to look for a way out. The sultry Melissa will be the first to go. She will be cut into several pieces by Vannacutt's ghost. Now the others are beset by the demons and are on the run. The grotesque happenings of 1931 come back to life. Evelyn is quite the schemer, and her disbelief of the demons seems to set up her doom. Eddie and Sara develop into a sweet couple and emerge as two of the characters we want to survive. Ghosts, demons, dissections, a mad scientist, and the homicidal tendencies of many of the guests will make survival a longshot.
The three aforementioned actresses are quite stunning in this one...it is a shame some will die horribly. The male actors are also beefy and terrific. Limbs will fly...blood will streak...faces will be eaten off...but will anyone earn the million bucks? For some great gore, cheesecake, beefcake, and a Jeffrey Combs mad scientist portrayal, see "House on Haunted Hill."
They don't make them like that anymore. Meat market game show!
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