The remake of House on Haunted Hill from 1999 was actually good, IMO, really, really good. Blessed with quite an above average cast for a horror remake, Clear from Final Destination, Casanova Frankenstein from Mystery Men, Onatop from Golden Eye, Brandt from Equilibrium and Sonya Blade from Mortal Kombat…no A list but A list horror is always so disappointing.

This one has a little bit of a downgrade, it has Cerina Vincent and Erik Palladino, I’m not sure if Cerina is a lousy actress or the fact she’s so pretty means she never gets decent roles which show off any acting chops she may have. I do like seeing Erik Palladino and think he has a nice Jeremy Sisto quality to him and I’ve definitley seen him pull off good performances. As for the rest of the cast, like Stephen Price said in the ’99 version “I can honestly say, I’ve never heard of any of you”

Not that any of this matters because yeeeeeeeesh! This is not anyone’s A game.

We start with Ariel, the sister of Ali Larter’s character, Sara.

Following House on Haunted Hill it seems Sara did escape and not surprisingly after that night she had some trouble moving on. She called Ariel repeatedly the night before but Ariel rises at 5am because she is a very busy business woman. She goes to her job which seems to be as an editor or something similar for a men’s magazine. The photographer there is her friend Paul, who would obviously like to be more, she thinks there’s no way he can take pics of models in bikinis and less but still be interested in her.

This is like wondering why porn stars bother with a sex life at home, silly Ariel.

There's also a university thing where a professor is blahing on about Baphomet and a lost statue, he's Cerina's boyfriend and used to be Sara's lecturer. His TA barges into his office to tell him Sara has committed suicide.

He goes to her apartment as she was tracking this lost statue and she might have left him some info, Ariel and Paul are also there.
As they talk, there is a knock at the door and in barges one of the professors other former students, Erik Palladino along with his Pick’n’Mix villains. Quelle surprise, they are also after the baphomet statue and now everyone must go to the asylum.

Cue spooky shenanigans, Erik Palladino chewing the scenery, lesbian ghosts in sexy strait jackets, floating white goods and a crappt reason for Vannacot's evil in the 1999 movie. BOOOOO!!

One thing they did manage to do right is a shot of the other side of the building where Sara and Eddie were sat. We see that, though they emerged on a cliff edge there’s a road on the other side of the building.

It’s nice to know how they got down but it’s not worth sitting through this for. Yuck!

It has an end credits sequence to try to milk some more bewbs where a man and a woman in a horrible bikini are getting frisky on a beach on a grey, overcast day, like you do, when she tells him she’s laying on something they dig it up and of course it’s the statue.

“Might be worth something” he says, not worth another sequel obviously.

Thank Baphomet that’s over.

The real pain of this movie is that the actors did well with the utter trash they were given. Some of the effects were good but the creep factor of the 1999 versions almost stop-go motion for the ghosts was gone. Aside from the competent actors this was, ironically, Asylum level in quality.

I really hated the Baphomet angle as well, when Vannacott was a mad bastard for no reason it was very scary. Now he’s just some guy who got his soul hacked.
Much like the 1999 House on Haunted Hill and this travesty.

Interesting Stuff:
THEY MISUSED JEFFREY COMBS 
The budget was so low they couldn't afford Ali Larter
The extras couldn't speak English so had no lines
The DVD had the ability to choose what path the characters took at certain times which may explain the paper thin 'plot'