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Cast: Vincent Price, Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, old crone, floating skeleton

Plot of the 1959 original: A wealthy guy with an unspecified job invites five people to stay the night with him in a haunted house on a hill. If they survive the night, they’ll each get ten thousand dollars, which was quite a lot of money in 1959. If they don’t survive the night then Vincent Price will surely go to prison for accessorising murder. Actually, I wasn’t clear on that part.

Plot of the 1999 remake: A wealthy guy who ironically owns amusement parks invites five people to stay the night in an over-stylised house that is haunted by CGI. If they survive the night, they’ll each get $1,000,000, which is enough, I guess. If they don’t survive the night then Geoffrey Rush will surely go to prison for copying the plot of the original.

Subplot of both films: Vincent Price and his wife hate each other and it’s implied that he has killed three previous wives. Geoffrey Rush seems a bit nicer, though he does try to strangle Famke Janssen at one point.

Other subplots: An old, blind housekeeper feels bored of life and decides to stop brushing her hair, hang around the basement walking slowly in and out of shadow and skateboard past the second lead actress without saying a word.

A woman who writes a newspaper column has a vision of the future where she is in a remake of this film and wanders off alone into the basement and gets slaughtered. When she snaps out of her trance, she grabs a gun and clings to the other characters like a manacle.

A hot-headed pilot meets a girl he can boss around and so looks for opportunities to impress her and keep her away from the other men in the film. At one point, he locks her in her room, promising he’ll come back later and check on her. In a different film, this could’ve been very creepy.

A nervous man drinks a hell of a lot but only seems to get more nervous, which is surely the opposite of what should happen.

A new media woman mistakes herself for the lead female character and goes exploring in the basement alone.

A token black guy looks around, sees blindingly white faces looking back at him and prepares for death. An hour later, after no one else steps up and Geoffrey Rush seems to be insane, he realises that not only might he get through this thing, he might also get to have sex on a cliff ledge with the blonde woman. Continue reading →