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All-Reviews.com Movie/Video Review
House on Haunted Hill
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  out of 4
Review by ZT
3 stars out of 4
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I was not expecting much from this film because it left theaters fast. I
had also already seen the pathetic haunted house movie "The Haunting" which
was terrible. While viewing the film though, I found myself really creeped
out. In a nutshell, the films about a group of people invited to a party
at a old insane asylum by a rich theme park tycoon. The party is for his
wife who hates him as much as he hates her. Their goal is to spend the
entire night there and if they succeed, they are awarded 1,000,000 dollars
each. This film really surprised me with how scary some of it was. One
scene that comes to mind involves one of the party guests catching some
ghosts on camera. While she watches them perform surgery on someone, they
look up and stare at her, which doesn't sound too scary, but it sent
chills up my spine. She then turns around and sees a figure in the shadows.
What follows next lasts about three seconds, but was enough to freak the
hell out of me. When the rest of the people find
the camera and view it, sighns of torture and mutilation are uncovered.
Let me make a note that I was alone and in complete darkness while watching
this movie. I'm not sure why, but all this added up to me being severly
freaked out. I actually turned off the movie and watched some cable for
awile before turning it back on. Let me say that my favorite genre of
movies is horror. I've seen all the Texas Chainsaw Massacres, all the
Evil Deads, all the Friday the thirteenths, all the Nightmare on Elm
Streets, and all the Childs Plays. I've even seen Dawn of the Dead, Day
of the Dead, and Night of the living Dead 1,2,3,and the 90's remake.
Never have I turned off a movie because I was freaked out. Does that mean
House on Haunted Hill is better or scarier than those other movies. No,
it's probably only better than a few of them. I still consider this one
of my favorite movies though. It's full of a few other chilling sequences.
The music and sound effects also work perfectly for the movie. Now why have
I given it 3 stars instead of 4. The first reason is that many of the
characters are very bland and boring with little backstory on them or
development. Thats a problem that I could easily overlook though. The
big thing wrong with this film is the ending. It seems the makers of this
film wanted to show off some computer graphics for the end. I love special
effects, but it just didn't fit in here on this movie. The computerized
ghost just looks stupid anyway. It looks like nothing but a pile of goop.
It's not even scary at all and would've only worked if this was some kind
of goofy horror/comedy(a genre that I personally hate). I think when the
makers of this film found that they needed to finish the film, but still
had so many characters alive, they decided to throw in some stupid pile
of goop that could polish off a few of them. On my personal scale of
1-20, I give this movie a 16. The ending hurts it alot.
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