Search - Return to House on Haunted Hill (Unrated) on DVD

Gory and Boring

Tsuyoshi | Kyoto, Japan | 11/28/2007

(2 out of 5 stars)

""Return to House on Haunted Hill," sequel to "House on Haunted Hill" made (or remade) in 1999, has decent production designs and photography, but ultimately doesn't have enough narrative skills to interest us throughout the entire film. Like the 1999 original, the new film has a lot of effects including gores (including the gory one of the "operation" scene which Jigsaw might love to see). I don't hate seeing them at all, but its boring story is another thing.

In "Return to House on Haunted Hill" we see yet again characters trapped in the abandoned asylum "the Vanacutt Mansion" for the most unconvincing reasons - treasure hunting. Ariel Wolfe, fashion magazine editor and sister of Sarah, one of the survivors of the incident seen in the previous film, is kidnapped and forced to enter this dilapidated building where ghosts seem still roaming. Unfortunately you don't see Ali Larter or Jeffrey Rush here (though Jeffrey Combs reprises his role as the doctor). Amanda Righetti plays Ariel and she is not bad.

Anyway, you will see Ariel and other characters including mercenaries, a professor and his assistant looking for a relic, etc, and some of them picked off one by one when they (unaccountably) refuse to stick together, according to the genre's tired cliché. This is where we need a better script because once they are locked in, we have to wait for the scary and gory moments to come, which somehow include lesbianism and nudity. It seems the characters don't know what they really want to do, getting out or staying in, but even these ghosts don't know what they are supposed to do."

Raising Hell

Santeria | Tallahassee | 10/07/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"And putting it to rest.
Wow!! This is one of those sequels that fully justify its existence.Kind of rare in some forms of Horror, and not what I was expecting in the HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL style. About all I missed in this film was the very stylised jerky ghost moves that characterised the first film. Whilst the Barebones structure of the plot of the search for the Statue, the Quest of Dr Richard Hammer, holds the film together, the carefully detailed death scenes spook the daylights out of anyone watching.
There is no commentary in this disc. However, the confessional elements in the features are very unique and cover some different ground in this style of supernatural splatter-fest.
And once again, this disc proves that the UNRATED format is the Gold standard."