I’m gonna rush through the “Overview” portion, because if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. Had I thought to look it up back in 1999 – the dial-up days – I’m sure I would’ve wasted a few hours in there.
House on Haunted Hill’s site, by contrast, had PLENTY to enjoy. Many existed simply because they had to exist, and beyond the barebones content (cast list, story summary and low-quality image gallery), there wasn’t always much to enjoy. Like I’ve mentioned in previous editions of Deadsites, there was a subtle uniformity to most of these pages.
#House on haunted hill online movie
Not every movie got the super huge online push that even the lowest level films might get today. This site had serious charm.Įven by 1999, studios were still “picking their shots” with the internet. The remnants were an aggravating puzzle that took way too long to put together, but I’m glad I went through the trouble. With luck on my side, I was able to dig up House on Haunted Hill’s official site, from 1999. It had so much going for it, including the greatest possible setting: An asylum that was more like a castle, filled with psychotic medical equipment. That conceit gave House on Haunted Hill the chance to be a little bit of everything. What’s supposed to only have the trappings of an everyday dark ride (animatronic fake-outs and the like) becomes much more sinister: The asylum has a terrible history, and the spirits of those who suffered there have apparently never left. In the film, a group of seemingly unrelated guests try to win a million bucks by surviving a night in an abandoned asylum. Need a refresher? Here’s one of the early scares: From the way it looked to the way it sounded, everything (well, almost everything) just clicked. The result was a horror movie that let you in on the joke, but never lost sight of what it was there for.
The film never took itself seriously… except when it needed to.
The remake of William Castle’s 1959 film was one of the few times that “tongue-in-cheek horror” worked perfectly for me. Too many people focus on its admittedly dopey ending, and forget that the ride leading up to it was so much fun. I wonder if that’s why I have such fond memories of it? A stone’s throw from the last Halloween of the ‘90s. I saw House on Haunted Hill on its opening night – October 29 th, 1999.