Reviewed by Robert Hull
Stars Amanda Righetti, Erik Palladino, Cerina Vincent,
Andrew Lee Potts, Andrew Pleavin, Chucky Venice,
Steven Pacey, Tom Riley, Jeffery Combs
Written by William Massa
UK certification 18 | UK RRP £13.99
DVD Region 2 | Runtime 81 minutes
Directed by Victor Garcia
When a heroine is seen in the early reels of a horror movie wearing a white vest top, the chances are high that it won’t be pristine come the gripping finale. This is just one of a bunch of supposedly accepted movie clichés you’ll have to put up with if you decide to experience the direct-to-DVD Return to House on Haunted Hill. Showers that pump out blood, lights that constantly flicker on and off, wise-cracking sidekicks despatched with relish — they’re all here.
Return... is a sequel to the 1999 hit, House on Haunted Hill, which was itself a remake of a 1959 movie. It picks up the story threads of the previous film, where five people agreed to stay in a “haunted” house in order to win $1 million. Not surprisingly, they quickly found out the house was indeed haunted by victims of the cruel experimentations of the demented Dr Richard Benjamin Vannacutt (Combs). The sister of a survivor from “the house” becomes this sequel’s central figure, when Ariel Wolfe (Righetti) can’t accept the news of her sister Sara’s apparent suicide. Neither can Dr Richard Hammar (Pacey) a professor of archaeology on the trail of a statue known as the Bashomet Idol. He believes Sara knew the whereabouts of the idol. Dr Hammar is right, sadly he’s not alone in knowing this — or in wanting the idol — as former student Desmond (Palladino) and his team of rent-a-sidekicks are on to it too. Naturally, they all end up heading to the house on the hill. For such a short movie (72 minutes without credits), Return... requires a lot of explaining and this extends to the dialogue — much of which is exposition. Sadly, there are no genuine moments of terror and this ends up being a very deliberate genre piece, where the only real enjoyment is working out who you think is going to “get it” next. If only Return to House on Haunted Hill could fall into the “so bad it’s good category” we’d then have a guilty pleasures movie. Instead we just have a “so bad it’s just not very good” movie.
EXTRAS ** Deleted scenes, which add a dash of comedy; a faux-documentary on the origins of the Bashomet Idol; and character confessionals — where, in character, each actor tells you about the person they are playing.