RETURN TO THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (2007)
Starring: AMANDA RIGHETTI, ERIK PALLADINO, TOM RILEY, AND JEFFREY COMBS
Directed by: VINCENT GARCIA
There are some houses that should not be revisited; your parents, ex-girlfriends/boyfriends, ex husbands/wives, and of course haunted houses.
"Return To The House On
Haunted Hill" takes place a few months after the original party thrown by
Stephen Price, who in this film is blamed for the killings of his party
guests. The female survivor Sarah (played by Ali Carter in the first film)
has gone crazy and has been calling her sister Ariel (Righetti) who has
stopped returning her phone calls because she believes her sister is nuts.
She then receives a call from her
mother
telling her that Sarah committed suicide, or has she?
While exploring her apartment for answers, she discovers that Dr. Vannacut (Jeffrey Combs) believed that art was therapeutic, and that an ancient relic he purchased back when may be the cause of the house being haunted. A local college professor, who as it seems has been looking for this relic, wants to go into the house and find it.
Along comes Desmond (Palladino) and his gang. Desmond is a former student of the professor and wants the relic to sell to a private buyer for five million dollars. So at gunpoint the group goes into the bowels of the house to find the relic.
The original 1999 film had a
good story line, strong characters and an original concept on the clichéd
"haunted house" genre. This film has none of these. Here, the characters are
completely one-dimensional, clichéd, and just plain boring. Amanda Righetti,
who plays Sarah's sister, is completely without any emotion so you don't
feel pity for her in
the
least. The rest of the film is just as expected, the gang is picked off by
the spirits of the house. More gore scenes are thrown in here to try and
make it more shocking, but it doesn't. And when the house does it's
"lockdown", the way the survivors get out is totally ridiculous. Jeffrey
Combs wanders around the house as usual, showing up in time to slice or
electrocute someone. He must of been able to film his scenes in one day just
for the paycheck.
Executive producer Joel Silver obviously is here in name only. If he doesn't want to be involved in the process of the film's production, he should stay away, especially from horror films. Most ones he is involved with are dogs, as is this film. Don't return to the House On Haunted Hill. Watch the originals from 1959 or 1999 instead.
My Rating:
REVIEWED BY TONY BERNARDINI
