Yet another cash-grab sequel to a film no one cared about in the first place, which itself was a mediocre remake, here we are with the awkwardly titled ‘Return to House on Haunted Hill’ that makes the most of its DTV fate in life with an HD exclusive feature that allows the user to decide who lives…and who dies…
With an apparent “96 frightening possibilities” of how the story will proceed, the only thing frightening I can think of about these possibilities is how bored somebody would have to be to exhaust them all.
A gimmick that gives this otherwise unremarkable flick a chance on HD-DVD, don’t be fooled by the novelty. As basically what you’re deciding just seems to move the scenes around a bit but the film will always come back to the last third of the story regardless of your choices.
Now had they taken this a step further and made it a little more interactive a la let’s say ‘Dragon’s Lair’, to make this feature more of a game, then maybe they would’ve been on to something. As it is, the fools die sooner or they die later, but their still fools.
A far cry from the Vincent Price original and even the 99’ remake which at least had a raving Geoffrey Rush and a strong opening to tout before decomposing into a derivative CGI-gore laden bore, this half-ass sequel is peculiarly bad even by DTV standards.
The Plot, heh, wait…let me start again. The loose assemblage of “actors” standing around, presumably taking shots between takes to spit out the dialogue, revolves around the ‘Baphomet Idol’, some treasured statue hidden away in the cliff-side asylum made popular in the 99’ remake.
The script by William Massa is so forced, and so removed from anything a reasonable person may come up with involving a sequel, that may be its sole selling point from a film standpoint.
The events of the ‘99 pic involve an eccentric millionaire offering some money to a group of people to survive a night in a haunted house aka the Vannacutt Psychiatric Institute for the Criminally Insane where he then tried to scare them to death. But wouldn’t you know it…the asylum was actually haunted by the ghosts of victims at the hands of Dr. Richard Benjamin Vannacutt – simple and to the point.
This pic? Sigh. Where to begin with this convoluted mess…it’s eight years later and we meet Ariel Wolfe (Amanda Righetti), the sister of Sara (Ali Larter in the original) who survived that original night in ’99. Apparently, eight years later the memories of that fright night have finally gotten to Sara and she might…or might not have committed suicide (the only smart decision in the flick…).
Ariel, being the good sister she is pulls a Nancy Drew only to find out that Sara was in possession of a journal written by the very same doctor, Vannacutt, who tortured all those patients and then got what was coming to him (Jeffrey Combs who reprises his role and who is the one bright spot of the pic).
In this journal, it’s revealed that the doctor hid a statue, the Bashomet Idol, in the bowels of the asylum. This idol, worth millions, apparently started all the evil-doing as it radiates pure….evil!
So Ariel and pal get kidnapped by a group of gun-toting treasure hunters…yes, you read that right, treasure hunters…that includes a lesbian martial artist (niice), an ex-UFC fighter and Erik Palladino (not so nice) and head out to the asylum to find the, ahem, treasure.
Anywho, so all these people go into the asylum to try and score the treasure and, of course, run into some ghouls. With enough ridiculous characters and plot details to fill five straight-to-video flicks, the flick relies on its ‘choose your adventure’ gimmick to pull the viewer away from the plot and just try to treat it like a videogame. But the problem is we’re not there yet.
We can overlook bad acting and plot lines in a game like ‘Resident Evil’ due to the constant control, yet here, we got to wake ourselves up every five minutes to make a banal decision (should ‘Sara answer the phone? Yes/No’…oh, what to do, what to do!)
Truth be told, I actually missed some of the decisions (if you don’t select an option within a few seconds, the flick does it for you) because I wasn’t paying attention. That being said, there is a lot of potential here with this type of special feature and its technically done better than some DVD attempts in the past (‘Final Destination 3’ comes to mind) with seamless transitions and more frequency in the choices.
I will say the presentation of the flick is pretty slick, and if the story isn’t above most of the DTV dreck out there, the video and audio certainly is. Presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, quite rare for DTV, with a VC-1 1080p transfer, the print is unsurprisingly clean (where did it have to go?) and vibrant with rich, deep blacks (necessary for a film mostly in shadows). A Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 track is also included. So the flick looks and sounds good at least.
Special Features, including the decision-making talked about above which is exclusive to HD; consist of 18 ‘Character Confessionals’, all annoyingly separated on the extras submenu.
The film’s actors, in character, let us know why they entered the asylum. Hardy-har. Also included is a short featurette explaining the background of the idol, some useless deleted scenes, and a ridiculous music video.
'Return to House on Haunted Hill' is an interesting experiment. I can’t recommend it at all as a straight film - there is some decent gore but certainly nothing that will stay with you which is pretty much a waste of the solid asylum setting.
Yet the HD-exclusive ‘Play the Movie Your Way’ may hold some interest for you early adopters out there where it might work in the context of a few pals, a few beers and a Halloween theme night. I would chalk this one up as a rental for a cheese-puff party night.
Return to House on Haunted Hill HD DVD is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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