House on Haunted Hill? (1 Viewer)

[Adam Lenhardt]

I was just replying to 'The Others' thread in Movies, and I was reminded of the House on Haunted Hill (the orginal, not the terrible POS remake). Is there a DVD of this availiable anywhere? Is it OAR? I'd be very much interested in picking it up.
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[Wes Ray]

The original was nothing great. A good performance by Vincent Price, but a second-rate ghost movie for that decade. The remake had a terrible ending, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. It was much more enjoyable than a lot of the crap out there today that's called "horror".

 

[MaxY]

Yes it is out on DVD and I do believe it is OAR.
Max
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[Matthew Chmiel]

Get the Warner DVD of the original film. It includes the film in anamorphic widescreen, other DVDs of the film include the film in pan & scan/full frame (don't know which one of the two).
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[Greg_Y]

The original was nothing great. A good performance by Vincent Price, but a second-rate ghost movie for that decade.

It is pretty creep though. Plus it has Elisha Cook, Jr.!

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

The original was nothing great. A good performance by Vincent Price, but a second-rate ghost movie for that decade.

That's what I loved about it. It fell for every cliche' in the book, and then at the end Spoiler:they even go so far to explain all the happenings, which turn out to be of a rather un-supernatural nature.I guess it all depends on what you were looking for going into it.
Thanks for the info. This is now sixth on my list of DVDs to pick up Matthew, Max, and Greg.
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[Wes Ray]

I like the original, don't get me wrong. I just don't see why so many people knock the remake.
The DVD for the remake has a couple of featurettes that deal with William Castle and the original film, for anyone who's interested. Great DVD...by Warner Bros, no less.

 

[Patrick McCart]

The DVD is a DVD-10 with the open matte version on one side and the matted version (16x9 enhanced!) on the other.
Filmfax gave a great review for the DVD...although the only extras are a trailer. (Whaaat? No emergo?)
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[Gary W. Graley]

I just saw the remake and for me, not worth the time, BUT don't go on my sayso as I'm not a gore fan...BUT it did have a really great line in it that had me laughing out loud and that sort of redeemed it...it's not a spoiler but I'll put it in the spoiler black for those that don't want to be given any hint to it;

When at the very end the Spirits of the house were sucking in all of the 5 who were related to the original 5 that survived the fire, the black actor, sorry don't know his real name but he did a great job in the film, in the film his name was Eddy, as the Spirits were about to reach him he yells out ~Hey I was Adopted!~ I about snorted my Dr.Pepper!

G2

 

[Steve Lockwood]

The remake was not that bad except for the horrible ending. That ruined the whole movie for me.

 

[Jon_B]

I liked certain elements of the remake. For me it was one of those movies where if they had only had more than a few good ideas it would be one heck of a movie.

Jon

 

[Thomas T]

The candidate for the worst film of 1999 was a toss up between The Haunting and House On Haunted Hill. I think Haunted Hill inched out Haunting by a nose.
The original 1959 and much more enjoyable William Castle House On Haunted Hill at least had the semblence of a coherent story. The 1999 computer generated special effects overdose was a mess!

 

[Adam Tyner]

Actually, according to director William Malone, CGI was used sparingly in House on Haunted Hill. The budget was $19 million, less than a quarter of what The Haunting had at its disposal.

I personally consider House on Haunted Hill to be a rather fun ride, one of my favorites of '99, though I suppose I'm greatly in the minority there. I don't see how anyone unfortunate enough to see Bats or Wing Commander would consider those movies superior to House on Haunted Hill...

 

[Thomas T]

Adam, I was, of course, referring to only films I'd seen. Bats and Wing Commander may well be worse than House On Haunted Hill but both Wing and Bats had "stay away" written all over them. With both Geoffrey Rush and Famke Janssen in Haunted Hill, I thought how bad could it be? I found out.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I finally picked up the All Region open-matte Hong Kong release. I'd planned on getting the anamorphic Warner release, but for 6 bucks, it just wasn't worth the difference. I remember watching this on AMC in open-matte and enjoying the presentation (ie. no boom mikes or obvious pans.) Had this been P&S, then I would have put down the extra $$$$, but as it is...

 

[Alex Shk]

There is a certian charm to movies you remember from your youth. As you mature, your perspective on what is entertaining, or unique changes - but you will always have a soft spot for the "corn" if it reminds you of being a kid.

In NYC - a pair of local television stations (WNEW channel 5 - now a Fox affiliate, and WPIX channel 11 - now a UPN affiliate), traded off showing a program called "Chiller Theater". In essence, this was just a Saturday night re-run of (ususally) cheesy old horror films. What distinguished it from others - was that it was (off and on) hosted by Zacharle - a guy who dressed up in vampire/corpse make-up, and presented weird (and often very funny) sketches in between the commercial breaks. He played the "mad scientist" transplanting brains (cauliflour) into the Blob (jello mold). He would make snide remarks about the film, often "goofing" on it - and he pre-dated "Elvira" (who gained national fame MANY years later after a similar gig on local west coast television) by AT LEAST a decade. Zachalre became a rock n' roll DJ on NY radio in the 70's and 80's - he never referred to his "vampire" days.

Anyway, the original "House on Haunted Hill" was one of the staples of this progrm - and will always remain a personal favorite of mine, despite any and all of it's technical shortcomings. This program also often ran "Carnival of Souls", which Criterion released in their collection last year.

Now if only someone can dig up "Frakensteins Daughter", a cheesy early 60's film that featured monster makeup that kept me awake for at least a few nights back in 1965....

 

[Robert Crawford]

In NYC - a pair of local television stations (WNEW channel 5 - now a Fox affiliate, and WPIX channel 11 - now a UPN affiliate), traded off showing a program called "Chiller Theater".

Alex,

Those were the memories as Bob Hope used to sang. As a kid growing up in NYC Metro Area during the 1960's, "Chiller Theater" was cool! Does anybody rememeber the severed hand they used when coming back from commercial break? By the way, the original "House on the Haunted Hill" was one of my all-time favorite Horror flicks and I do own the Warner disc.

Crawdaddy

 

[Dick]

Alex: I grew up in a NYC suburb and watched CHILLER THEATER every week. Not to be unduly picky, but I believe it was WOR-TV, Channel 9 which owned HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL, and ran it on their MILLION DOLLAR MOVIE and, about a year later, on MOVIE OF THE WEEK. I remember this because, if a movie run on MILLION DOLLAR MOVIE appealed to me, I would watch it five, six, seven times in a single week, and HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL was one I watched over and over, to the total consternation of my parents. CHILLER THEATER had its share of wonderful crappy movies, such as BLACK SLEEP and THE CORPSE VANISHES, and Zacherle was fun to watch, but WOR had the best movies, owning as they did the broadcast rights to the full RKO catalog as well as other stuff.

 

[Alex Shk]

Dick - I beleive you are correct. Living through the late 60's and early 70's cost me a few brain cells, I guess.

Additionaly - it was WOR channel 9 that is now actually the UPN station - channel 11 is now WB. I do remember a distinct connection between channel 9 and RKO, I think they may have been an RKO company.

 

[Robert Crawford]

That's right because Channel 9 always broadcast the 1933 version of "King Kong" which was a RKO release. Also, along with that severed hand at commercial breaks the words "Chiller Theater" were spoken.

Crawdaddy