The last major horror releases of the 20th century.
The powerhouse production team of Joel Silver, Robert Zemeckis, and Gilbert Adler (who had produced HBO’s Tales from the Crypt with fellow EC fan-addicts Richard Donner and Walter Hill) named their company after William Castle, the showman who once flew plastic skeletons over audiences during the 1959 original’s “Emergo” screenings. Dark Castle wasn’t reviving those gimmicks, but rather, they created two-dimensional haunted attractions for a post-Scream crowd. Self-aware and ready for a frightfully good time.
The timing was impeccable, really. The slasher revival was winding down, the early 2000s were about to be defined by zombies, J-horror adaptations like The Ring, the torture-horror boom, and Platinum Dunes strip-mining marquee titles like Texas Chainsaw, Amityville, and almost every major ’80s property they could flog. Dark Castle carved out a different niche and kept the 90s party going. They’re still churning out genre fare today, but between 1999 and 2009, they produced nearly a spookshow per year: Thir13en Ghosts (2001, another Castle remake), Ghost Ship (2002), Gothika (2003), House of Wax (2005), The Reaping (2007), Orphan and The Hills Run Red (both 2009). Some connected, others barely remembered to be scary at all, but every one carried the Dark Castle imprint: glossy, well coiffed, and always delivering at least one scene you couldn’t shake off. Think the wire scene in Ghost Ship… or Paris getting brained.
As the first one out of the gate, House on Haunted Hill leaned hard on production design. The Vannacutt Psychiatric Institute was built as a giant rotting art deco nightmare that included an ersatz Body Worlds exhibit. The effects mixed practical grue with late-’90s digital work, not all of it aged well, but the sheer scale gave the film a theatrical heft most horror of the time couldn’t match. Geoffrey Rush was the film’s anchor, though. His Stephen Price was modeled on Vincent Price in name and theatricality, but Rush played it with a mean straight edge rather than soft mimicry. It’s the performance that lends the film its credibility.
House on Haunted Hill remains one of my favourite horror films. From the gorgeous opening title sequence to the final twist, it ends on a note of satisfying optimism that landed perfectly just weeks before the new millennium. -Pop
House on Haunted Hill opened Halloween weekend 1999. It was Dark Castle Entertainment’s first film.