House on Haunted Hill (1999)

• Year: 1999
• Director: William Malone
• Starring: Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Taye Diggs

Sometimes a film is such a classic, so perfect in every way, that you wonder why anyone would even think to remake it. Other times, like today’s example, a film may be a cult classic, but since it doesn’t have mainstream appeal, remaking it makes a lot of sense. 1959’s House on Haunted Hill is essentially the cinematic version of a haunted house ride—campy, atmospheric, loads of fun, and with just the right number of actual scares to make it worthwhile. Vincent Price relishes the lead role of Frederick Loren, and producer William Castle mixes the horror and the comedy perfectly. Plus, like a haunted house ride, it’s short. It’s only 75 minutes long, and it’s in the public domain, so you can check it out for free at any time.

In the 1959 film, eccentric millionaire Frederick Loren (Vincent Price) and his wife Annabelle (Carol Ohmart) offer $10,000 to five guests if they can survive a whole night in a haunted house. As the night goes on it’s revealed that one of them is Annabelle’s lover who is conspiring with her to kill Frederick, but the other four are there for honest reasons. In the 1999 film, weird (eccentric is too kind) millionaire Steven Price (Geoffrey Rush) offers five guests $1,000,000 if they can spend the night in an abandoned mental hospital where a doctor went on a killing spree years ago.

We’ll get back to… everything about this character.

Alright so I understand adjusting the prize for inflation, but according to the American Institute for Economic Research Cost of Inflation calculator, $10,000 in 1959 came to about $57,000 in 1999. Here’s a good rule to go by. If an eccentric millionaire is willing to put up $50,000 to spend a night in a haunted house, he’s clearly just having some fun. If he puts up ONE MILLION DOLLARS, it’s too good to be true and you should run the other way.

Also, I have to mention the title. It’s not even a house! It’s a mental hospital. I get changing things but it’s good to make sure that the House on Haunted Hill is actually a house!

Now, it’s not like the 1959 film is perfect. The cast of the original is not amazing all around, and honestly, there’s only one memorable character besides Vincent Price, and that’s Watson Pritchard (Elisha Cook Jr.)

Pritchard is the owner of the house, and a firm believer in ghosts. By the end of the film, we’re still not sure if the ghosts are real or not, but Pritchard remains the same. The other actors are fine, but no one stands out. It says it all that every time I watch the film, I forget which of the other two male characters Annabelle is cheating with.

In the remake, I’m convinced that the casting director just started throwing darts at a dartboard of mid-level ’90s character actors and took what stuck.

As Price’s wife Evelyn: Famke Jannsen.

As Eddie: Taye Diggs

As Sara Wolfe (posing as Jennifer Jensen): Ali Larter.

As Dr. Donald Blackburn: A set of eyebrows with Peter Gallagher attached.

As Watson Pritchard: Ugh. Why? Chris Kattan.

The character is as fearful as in the original film, but what came across as a sympathetic character there just comes across as annoying here. Maybe it’s because he’s constantly making fun of the other guests, turning him into that party guest no one can stand.

There’s also a random cameo by Lisa Loeb as a reporter who interviews Price at his amusement park.

I know this a movie where ghosts form a spiritual ooze and go after guests staying in a haunted asylum, but I need to nitpick here. You shouldn’t wear glasses on a roller coaster! They usually ask you take them off as it starts. This is just common sense.

This film on the whole was not particularly well-received, but the one aspect that got a lot of praise was Geoffrey Rush’s performance. While his heart is clearly in it, I have to say that I just cannot stand this character.

The name is clearly a shout-out to Vincent Price, and the appearance is at least an attempt (with perhaps a dash of Walt Disney thrown in), but instead of looking like the debonair horror actor, Geoffrey Rush just looks like a creep with that mustache. That aside, I’m not quite sure what he’s going for with the voice. Maybe he’s trying and failing for a Vincent Price emulation, but it just comes off sounding like James Woods, which is not going to endear you to audiences.

In the original, we’re led to believe that Frederick Loren is evil, but we then learn that his wife has been trying to kill him. He still had three previous wives die (the current wife claims under mysterious circumstances), and he still doesn’t come off as squeaky clean, but there’s just the right amount of charm that we like the guy.

In the remake, Steven Price’s wife is still trying to kill him, and he’s trying to kill her, but frankly we don’t know who started it, and they both just come off as horrible. If the other characters were likable, I’d be fine with this, but they’re really not. In what could have been an interesting twist, both Prices assume the other one made the guest list. This could have led to an interesting reveal that in fact neither of them did and there are definite supernatural forces at work. Instead, the movie decides to reveal it in the opening scenes with, and I cannot make this up, a self-typing computer.

I am going to be super generous and say maybe this could have worked if it was an old-fashioned typewriter and we saw the keys being hit slowly one at a time. Instead, we just see words appearing on a screen. How riveting. This is the ultimate in 1999 terror, folks—words appearing on a screen.

None of the guests invited to the house are all that interesting, except Peter Gallagher simply on the basis of being Peter Gallagher. His character is the one having an affair with Price’s wife, but at least he brings a certain gravitas to the role. I just guess that between this and American Beauty, 1999 was the year his characters had affairs with the wives of creeps.

In fact, the other characters are so bland that I’m not sure if these are two different characters or just a ghostly mirror image.

In the original, everyone willingly decides to stay in the house for the night. In this one, they come there willingly, but Pritchard wants to leave. As he’s about to leave, the doors close, meaning the rest of the movie is spent searching for an exit. Again… riveting stuff. That’s one thing I loved about the original and to a greater extent The Haunting—These people are entering a haunted house willingly! Explore that angle, please. There is fun to be had there.

Instead, the movie just kills the characters off when they’re tired of them I guess. Sara, the blonde on the left in the above picture, gets drowned by a ghost in blood. Again, if they had gone for a mix of campy and scary, this kind of thing could have worked, but it plays the material too straight. Evelyn seems to be killed by an old electroshock therapy machine, and everyone tries to stop it while Price just stands there yelling at them to stop it. Maybe do something yourself!

We of course learn that the second-billed star in this thing faked her own death, and she and Dr. Eyebrows reveal their plan to kill Price in an exposition-heavy scene. However, out of absolutely nowhere, she kills Dr. Eyebrows instead.

We get no reason for this, and it’s not explained afterwards. I could see maybe trying to frame him for the deaths if you’re not really in love with him, but why just randomly add another dead body? It makes no sense.

Meanwhile, Eddie and Sarah discover a picture of the doctors who worked at the hospital at the time of the massacre. They realize that the five doctors who survived are all ancestors of the guests at the party, which they act surprised by but literally no one should have been surprised by. Hey, here’s an idea. When there are five people who survived a massacre, and five people are invited to a party at that location and supernatural things start happening, maybe just maybe something is up. Sure, they discover that Dr. Eyebrows has no relative on the picture (Evelyn invited him), but Price does a relative there, so that’s still five.

Price then takes a page from Evelyn’s playbook and fakes his death, and when she walks over to his seemingly-dead body, she begins to monologue. Why would you anyone monologue to a dead body? Maybe just get out of there. It’s clearly only for the audience’s benefit. He then comes to life and throws her into a room where the ghosts eventually reveal themselves and kill her.

It’s never explained why the ghosts take this physical form, and I’m pretty sure the screenwriters just made this up to kill off people quickly. If ghosts are just being creepy and below the surface, you can’t kill people like a slasher. After Evelyn’s death, Price begins pounding on the door with Eddie, Sarah and Pritchard on the other side. Since they know the ghosts are behind him, Eddie and Sarah refuse, but Pritchard feels bad and opens the door, getting killed instead of Price. It’s out of nowhere and pretty hilarious.

Price, Eddie and Sarah run up to the exit in the attic while the ghost horde (What am I supposed to call it?) chases them, with Price sacrificing himself so Eddie and Sarah can get to the window for an exit. I think the movie is suggesting that Sarah survives because since she’s not Jennifer Jensen, she’s not related. Meanwhile, Eddie screams “I’m adopted,” which I’m sure is logic the ghosts will listen to. Anyway, they do get to safety, but it’s on a ledge hundreds of feet up overlooking the ocean. A ghost pushes out the five one-million-dollar checks made out to cash, but they do have to get out of there first. I suppose someone will come eventually, but this is where we leave them.

Well let’s take a look at how this compares to the original.

CAST

The original has Vincent Price. The remake does not. Do I need to say more? There are plenty of cast members in the remake that I like in other things, but they have nothing to work with here. Peter Gallagher is at least trying, but his character unmercifully exits the film far too early.

STORY

By expanding the story, the film only serves to only make it more confusing. I love how the ghosts were ambiguously real in the original, but the remake takes all the plot points from the original and adds more for good measure, including an over-complicated backstory. It doesn’t work.

EXPERIENCE

I’ll give a few points here as some effects are solid. Price has an assistant (obvious cannon-fodder) who is revealed to have had his face torn off, and it’s a pretty good effect. That said, the house is just kind of gray and brown and not that creepy, while the original is a classic haunted house (although it’s not as traditional looking on the outside). There was so much potential for a remake, and so little is lived up to.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This is a pretty worthless remake. I’m sure it has its fans, but it just gets lazier as it goes on.

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Mini Match-Up: Forgotten Horror Remakes

Sure, there are too many remakes coming out today, but remaking older films has been a practice since the very beginning of film. This Halloween, I want to take a look at some horror remakes that have either slipped under the radar or have been forgotten in recent years.

I’ll be looking at 6 remakes leading up to Halloween, from as early as the 1940s to as recently as 1999. At the end of each review, I’ll compare the remake to the original in terms:

CAST

STORY

EXPERIENCE

Who knows? Maybe there will even be a forgotten classic or two in there.

Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera has been adapted countless times… (More)

Sometimes a film is such a classic, so perfect in every way, that you wonder why anyone would even think to remake it… (More)

Psycho is only of the single-most important events in the entire history of film, so of course someone decided to remake it… (More)

For the second week in a row, I’m taking a look at a 1990s remake of a 1960 horror film… (More)

Sure, there are a million adaptations of Dracula out there, but in 1979… (More)

I’m finishing up my series on horror remakes with a remake of one of the biggest cult classics of them all… (More)

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Phantom of the Opera (1943)

• Year: 1943
• Director: Arthur Lubin
• Starring: Claude Rains, Susanna Foster, Nelson Eddy

Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera has been adapted countless times for the stage and screen, so you can’t really call every adaptation a remake. However, this 1943 adaptation comes from Universal, meaning it’s an intentional attempt to capitalize on the iconic 1925 version with Lon Chaney in the title role.

In the 1940s, the popularity of horror films was dwindling considerably. Between the real-life horrors going on in Europe and increased film censorship thanks to the Hays Code, movie monsters just weren’t as scary. Universal had newfound success in 1941 with The Wolf Man, but most of their films of the decade were also b-movies. More than anything, it was the era of horror crossovers. There was Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, House of Frankenstein, Abbott and Costello Frankenstein, The Mummy and the Wolf Man Go to Monte Carlo, and Dracula vs. Frankenstein vs. Kramer. In the wake of all this, Universal decided to remake one of its earliest horror hits The Phantom of the Opera.

Unlike every big Universal horror film of the time, Phantom is shot in color. For a studio iconic for its beautiful black-and-white cinematography, it’s an odd choice, but I think it was used to showcase the big opera scenes, and oh boy does this film like to showcase the big opera scenes.

We get it, it takes place at the Paris Opera, but we don’t need to see all of it! If you want to make an opera, make an opera. If you want to make a horror film, make a horror film. The good news on the horror side of things is that the makeup in this film is done by the legendary Jack Pierce. This is the man who did Boris Karloff’s makeup in Frankenstein and The Mummy. As a reminder, here’s what Lon Chaney’s makeup looked like in the 1925 film.

So what did Jack Pierce do with it here?

Alright, so in this version, unlike the novel and Chaney film, the Phantom isn’t born with a deformity. Instead, he gets acid thrown in his face later in the film. There’s no mystery surrounding him, because we know who he is right out of the gate. That said, it’s Claude Rains. He’s not Lon Chaney, and he’s not scary, but he’s still committed to the performance.

The Phantom in this version is a lonely violinist named Erique Claudin, who begins to have a problem in his left hand and can no longer play for the Opera. The maestro assumes he has money saved up, but we learn that Erique has instead spent his life’s earnings on singing lessons for Christine DuBois (Susanna Foster). The maestro would be willing to give Erique a larger retirement settlement, but he blew all of his money on mustache wax.

Seriously, why would you wax the beard? Why is it so pointy? I bet this is why your wife left you.

In most versions (the novel, the 1925 movie, the musical, pretty much every other version) the Phantom’s obsession with Christine is a sexual one. Here, it doesn’t seem to be, so why is he so obsessed? Well, in the original draft it was to be revealed that he was her father, but they decided to cut this angle. Apparently the studio didn’t want people to assume the romantic interest of the previous versions was there if they were father and daughter, even though no one would have thought that. Instead, we get a bizarre platonic obsession that doesn’t really make sense. I guess he just heard her sing once and thought she was amazing. That’s worth blowing a life’s savings over.

Another problem with Erique becoming the phantom mid-story is his living quarters. He starts a as man living in a tiny Paris apartment, but when he is fired from his job, he begins living under the Opera House. In the novel, it’s made clear that he was the construction worker who designed the living quarters, and the 1925 film implies that he’s been living there for a long time. In this movie, I guess he just discovers that one can live under the Opera House. What a nice coincidence that totally gets hand waved. My personal theory is that there’s actually another Phantom in this version, because at one point a character seems to imply that there have been rumors of a Phantom for a long time. Sadly, this is never explored.

So what causes Enrique to get acid thrown in his face? Well it goes something like this. He wrote a concerto, everyone laughs at him, but beyond his back they acknowledge it’s quite good. When he finds out the publisher is stealing it, he strangles the publisher to death, and the publisher’s assistant throws acid in his face.

Wow. That escalated quickly. What’s weird is that this film tries to play the Phantom up as more sympathetic than Chaney’s, but he murders multiple people in cold blood. You can make a character sad and still a murderer, but you can’t make him as sympathetic as they’re attempting here and have him going around murdering people.

The star of the 1925 film is undeniably Lon Chaney’s Phantom, and it’s the reason you’re there. Mary Philbin is fine as Christine, and there’s a mysterious Persian character in a Fez hat who’s kind of interesting, but it’s really Chaney’s show. Here however, the other characters are somehow even blander. Christine’s love interest from the book Raoul is split into two characters for more pointless shenanigans. First, there’s Raoul (Edgar Barrier) the sexist police detective who wants her to quit her job and marry him.

Second, there’s Anatole (Nelson Eddy), a fellow opera singer who quite appreciates her talent and wants her to continue with her job.

I’ll give Nelson Eddy some credit, because his character is at least charming. It’s not a brilliant performance or anything, but with what he has to work with, he does better than anyone else but Rains.

Why the choice between these Raoul and Anatole is presented as difficult I don’t know, but hey, we need some more forced drama. There’s also a weird running gag where Anatole and Raoul keep speaking over each other by starting the exact same sentence. It might work in a comedy, but in a film that barely has any humor, something this stupid is frankly shocking.

By the end of the movie, the romantic triangle (Or square I suppose if we’re including the Phantom) is not even resolved, as Christine picks neither Raoul nor Anatole. It’s kind of ambiguous whether she doesn’t want to date either of them or wants to continue to string them both along, but instead they join hands and leave together. I mean, I hope they’ll be happy together, but clearly Raoul is going to want Anatole to quit the opera and give all his time to him.

As the Phantom continues to commit crimes (including drugging and murder) to make sure Christine is the lead soprano, the police try to find a way to lure the Phantom out of hiding. They eventually decide to hire Franz Liszt, who happens to be in town (Just go with it), to play the Phantom’s concerto after the opera and bring him into the light so they can arrest him.

Liszt is more than happy to oblige, saying, “So many crimes have been committed in the name of music. It seems only fair to use it now to avert one.” WHAT? What crimes have been committed in the name of music? (I mean, besides what Michael Bolton did to “Dock of the Bay,” but that was years away at this point.) The Great Tuba Massacre of 1555? The 1830 Act of Gang-Related Violins?

Of course, the Phantom just keeps interfering with the Opera, this time of course knocking down the chandelier. Oh but how does he do it? WITH A SAW.

In midst of the chaos, he kidnaps Christine and takes her to his lair. He tells her she’ll be there with him forever, but it’s not as creepy as other versions, because she’s really only there for a few hours. She of course does the dramatic unmasking, but it just comes off as anti-climactic. Here’s what the scene looks like in the 1925 film:

And here’s the unmasking scene in this version.

Now to be fair, we know it’s acid that caused it already, so a lot of the mystery is gone, but come on. Don’t build it up to be dramatic if it’s not really going to be. You could have at least done the whole face. It’s Jack Pierce! Maybe the makeup is trying to symbolically represent his good side and his evil side, but he doesn’t really have a good side.

The plan to lure the Phantom out by playing his concerto works, albeit not in the way it was planned. He hears Liszt playing his concerto above him and begins to play it on his piano. He convinces Christine to sing (It’s based on a melody they both know), and the singing leads Raoul and Anatole to her. They shoot at him (yes, both of them at once with the same gun), but I guess they miss and hit a wall which brings the walls crumbling down. It’s confusing, but they needed a way out of this plot. The Phantom is presumably buried in the rubble as everyone else escapes, but in an obvious sequel hook, we see his mask sitting on top of it. It all ends rather quickly, and if you blink you might miss it (You’re not missing much anyway).

Alright, let’s break it down and compare it to the 1925 film.

CAST

In both cases, the Phantom is far and away the most interesting character. Claude Rains is charming and is never dull, but it’s doesn’t come close to one of his finer performances. In the original, Lon Chaney is phenomenal with or without speaking, mask on or mask off, and his performance is flawless.

No one else in either version is fantastic, but Nelson Eddy is fine here, and the whole supporting cast is at least decent in the original. It’s the Phantom’s story though, and the 1925 film especially knew this.

STORY

There’s an air of mystery and horror about the original, and when we see the Phantom’s lair and learn more of his backstory, it’s not suddenly taken away. The 1943 film decides to just answer everything, which ruins absolutely any mystery or suspense. The original is the clear winner here.

EXPERIENCE

The opera scenes in the 1943 version are very well done, but it’s not scary in the slightest. The original is atmospheric and creepy in all the best ways.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Despite plans for a sequel, it never came to fruition, which means we unfortunately never got The Phantom and The Invisible Man Take a Bus Trip to Hungary. There’s not a lot wrong with this version of this film, but unless you really want to watch all of them, or you’re a big Claude Rains fan, you’re not missing much.

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