so here is the second of 1999's remakes of classic horror movies . 
the first was the dumb , pathetic but ok remake of the classic 'the haunting' . 
now comes the highly awaited remake of house on haunted hill . 
the classic which starred vincent price as a man who pays a group of people 100 , 000 to stay in his house . 
if they survive the night they get the money . 
if not well you get the jurisdiction . 
having not yet seen the film ( dvd on its way ) i wasn't sure if i would really like the remake . 
but sure enough it comes through and has a great storyline to fall back on . 
geoffrey rush ( in a fantastic role with an incredible performance ) is steven price , the owner of an amusement park destined to scare the wits out of people . 
his wife evelyn price is throwing a party with her friends . 
steven dismays at the idea and makes his own list . 
somehow someone , or something changes that list and five other people are invited to the party . 
eddie ( taye diggs ) an ex-baseball player , sarah ( ali carter ) an ex-assistant who can re-wire anything , melissa ( brigette wilson ) a talk-show host in sorts , dr . blackburn ( peter ghallager ) , and watson ( chris kattan ) a smart-mouthed humorist in ways . 
what he is gonna do is pay these five people 1 , 000 , 000 dollars if they can survive through the night . 
if they can they get the money , if not well they don't . 
the house on haunted hill used to be an insane asylum . 
years before mental patients broke out and killed the dr . there , forcing him to lock the place up because if he died , so did they . 
everyone who was in there burned to death . 
now it is steven price's home and he is throwing this party for these five people . 
what starts out as a seemingly normal night , turns into a horrifying , blood splattering night . 
the deep dark secrets of what really happened in that asylum and why those guests are actually there are revealed . 
one-by-one the people start to disappear . 
conspiracies start to turn up , and steven price finds out that his house may be alive after all . 
the people find rooms , which once held mental patients . 
rooms which once had people dying . 
rooms which may still contain these people . 
now these five people must try and survive the night and try and survive the house , and they must survive each other with terrorfying results . 
since i officially haven't seen the original i can't say which is better . 
i can say however i liked this movie . 
geoffrey rush gives a one in a million performance as the rich steven price , and does a great job doing a vincent price role . 
famke jansen as his wife was great and even kind of eerie at times . 
ali carter and taye diggs sort of become the main characters and ali carter who debuted in varsity blues gives a fantastic performance here as does taye diggs . 
chris kattan gives us great comic relief and the movie contains a lot of comical lines . 
peter ghallager and brigette wilson were great as well and gave commanding performances as potential victims . 
the plot was well conceived and was very absorbing . 
the movie has atmosphere the whole way through that is disturbing and creepy , and even sometimes downright scary . 
i found even the opening credits to me a little ominous . 
one thing i knew not to expect was a 'haunting' type movie with special effects galore . 
even though it had fantastic gore and special effects , the movie has only a 19 million dollar budget , which doesn's show all the way through but you can tell . 
the movie was written well , and it's only major flaw is the under-developed characters and plot holes that we are left with . 
the ending is quite clever and some may not even get it . 
i must say house on haunted hill was a surprise . 
i was expecting another haunting with special effects , no scares and a dumb ending . 
instead i found a good halloween movie with gore , scares and great acting . 
house on haunted hill is one of those movies you really can't take seriously . 
though it is a well-made movie with a good storyline it still has some flaws . 
but besides that the movie is fun , smart and scary and makes us wonder why remakes like this can't be made all the time ! 
