User Reviews

You can have all the CGI effects you want and ear busting sound effects, but if you don't have a decent script or likable characters, you don't have a film and in the case of this direct-to-video sequel to a 1999 pointless remake of a classic horror film, what you get is a film that is easy to hate from the very start. I saw the remix when it first was released on video, and found it disturbingly gross and pointless and filled with anger.

This long unneeded sequel is 10 times as bad, filled with lousy acting and characters so deserving I'm being pushed into the vat of acid from the original film that you feel you might want to stick around you just to see it. But is it really worth the waste of your not your time? That question is in the eye of the viewer, and I try to give a film at least an hour before I decide if I want to proceed towards that conclusion.

This film doesn't last much more than an hour and even then, it is difficult and all of the characters just makes you hate it all the more. It doesn't have anything that you haven't seen in a mockbuster made by the hideous direct-to-video movie studio Asylum, and watching this makes you wish you were in one to where you didn't have access to horrible movies like this. The film doesn't have any motivation other than to gross-out the viewer, and with nothing a value, it isn't even worth using as a hot drink coaster. Simply skip it and go back and see the original 1959 version which may be campy and unintentionally funny but it's at least entertaining. This film is pure compost.

After seeing this the actual house in the film i had a vague memory of seeing the first one however really cannot remember so i can't comment on if this was a worthy sequel.

Ill start with the few GOOD points. - The film is set up well, the characters are quite well defined - with a sustainable introducing story horror which is believable. Moving on to when they are in the house. As in most horrors the music creates tension and an eeriness which definitely happens in this film and i definitely jumped a few times!

As for the gore - there is quite a bit and it is in your face quite frequently, so you can see all of what is happening to the characters (for example when A man wont say who... is getting his head slowly cut open and his brain being pulled out)

Now for the BAD points.

The gore and nastiness falls into both good and bad points. The reason i find it a weakness in the film is that the blood and guts is just too in your face. Meaning you see what happens in front of you, and if you thinking about it many of the most successful horror films use psychological horror tehchniques in order to scare you. Usually the most horrific sequences in horror films are the ones where they quickly cut away to the main action leaving your mind to imagine the horrific things that are happening, which doesn't happen at all in this movie.

Moving onto the acting it just wasn't consistently good throughout. As for the story as i said before it is set up well as a horror film but drastically changes to a fantasy film - taking away the sense of realism to the story, as some of the horror sequences and genuinely scary. Which dampened the story a bit.

Overall, this is a good film but easily forgettable. It does have some very nasty parts in it ... really its just a load of fun and gore.

6/10

I saw Return to House on Haunted Hill on sale the other day and figured to just check it out. For 8 bucks, what did I have to loose? I watched the film last night and over all, I'd say it wasn't too bad, I've seen a thousand times worse. The only major complaint, was the lesbian sex scene really necessary? Like, what did that have to do with the story at all? It's not like it was even realistic, it was some sick director's fantasy, because they are drop dead gorgeous girls who are moving like a porno film, it was just ridicules. The effects were actually kinda cool though, like the scene where the guy was torn apart by the ghosts was visually very cool to look at. The CGI is a little much, but to be honest, I'm at that point where I'm giving up and just accepting it, so I'm going to let go the over the top stuff go, but it's a cool horror story.

Ariel's sister just supposedly killed herself and has a secret about the haunted hill house, there is a statue in there that is worth millions. Leading us to the "bad guys" who are in it for the money and are using Ariel and her boyfriend to the house to get it. But they meet a professor and his student who are also after the statue, leading like Indiana Jones, and claims the statue should be in a museum. But understandably Ariel just wants to get out of there, but the house won't let her.

Return to House on Haunted Hill is not too bad, really. I'd say there is a good amount of scares and the story is decent enough, it's not your typical bad bad sequel that I expected. Would I recommend it to anyone? Not too many people, I think you'll have to see yourself, and be in a good mood to see a horror movie. Otherwise if you take the time to watch this, don't take it too seriously, because you are going to hate it. Gotta love the boy fantasy of having three women together naked and moving like a porno movie.

4/10

I was excited when finally given the chance to catch this. Admittedly we didn't have the DTV version in Australia, so I can't commend on that one, but being a HUGE fan of the original I was excited anyway. Disappointment doesn't even begin to scrape the bottom of the "bad review barrel". If I ever meet the person who green-lit this, who wrote it or who directed, I cannot be held responsible for my actions.

I could already feel the migraine of a bad movie setting in from the point where Ariel(?) starts as some ice-queen executive too busy to answer Sara's phone message, and then all of the sudden becomes a vengeance seeking puzzle solving marksman? What the?

I know that a straight-to-DVD movie is meant to be taken with a pinch of salt, but instead this movie packed salt into the wound left by hideously unnecessary lesbian ghost scene. Again, painful. A complete departure from logic, plot and any relation to the original, I stuck by my "code" to watch every movie I see to the end, but this was beyond anything I have ever seen (read: painful). All in all, I can definitely say I'm going to have trouble sleeping tonight. And that's not from any "scares" attempted in this movie (or lack thereof), but more for myself wondering where the hell people come from who make a movie like this. Oh yea, Bulgaria...(see end credits for explanation to that one).

The movie's script ignores some facts from the 1999 remake (Eddie was forgotten, and so was the generous amount of money he and Sarah made, among other details) but it stands as a decent (and part mediocre) sequel. Bloody deaths, creative setting, characters you don't mind: The perfect recipe for fun.

The movie starts alright by creating some tension but then descends into a paint by numbers. There is some good to be said: The acting is fair, the special effects adequate and the cinematography competent. However, the movie disregards one of the main rules of horror in my book: Scares in a haunted house are achieved through subtlety. Mr. García seems to have been involved mainly in special effects before and he shows it with too much pride. While the effects are well done, nothing here happens in the shadows, everything has a spot on it. It's like the director wanted to showcase his handwork but in doing so, he degrades it to mere circus tricks (albeit bloody ones). He's even confident enough to leave the door open for another sequel. Final judgment: Nothing outstanding but not too weak either. I was mildly interested to watch until the end - 5,5/10.

This movie follows in the footsteps of the original Vincent Price and its remake a few years back. While the remake was nothing special, it was at least fun and made an effort to set up its premise with a back story. Return to House on Haunted Hill simply rides its back and tosses a motley cast of morons inside the forbidding walls of the crumbling asylum so that they may meet their ends for our supposed pleasure. How they go is sometimes gruesome, and always the same old contrived crap intended to make teenage girls "shriek" as if they were actually frightened.

First off, a band of mercenary-type guys (and one annoying chick who tries - unsuccessfully - way too hard to be deviantly sexy ) working for a former grad student - (uh, yeah, anyway...) as well as a pretty female lead seeming in love with the photographer she only met that same day (and acts as if she's loved him for years) walk on to the set and start acting like a cross between the cast of Aliens and Beverly Hills 90210. The haunting is given only minimal explanation, and poor Jeffrey Combs simply pops in and out of his scenes (as if we are still scared by this special effect alone)looking very much like he wishes he were making another Re-Animator movie instead.

Yet AGAIN, a perfect example of great lighting, filming, and all of the above - BUT - without ANY story whatsoever, and therefore no audience concern for anything that's going on or any of the characters it's happening to. This was a series of scenes conceived and filmed seemingly apart from one another with the expectation that the story from the previous movie would tie them together. It fails miserably. I truly wanted to turn this off after a half an hour but, as with most current and recent horror flicks, I hoped it would somehow redeem itself but it never did. If shambling nurses and old asylums are going to be scary, it is not going to happen without setting the background and adhering to at least the semblance of a storyline. The sheer ridiculousness is spotlighted by the fact that these characters seem strut around trying to look sexy and tough in the face of certain death, hoisting weapons of every sort as if bullets will save them from what they, themselves refer to as a haunted house.

Now I know why this one slipped by so quickly that I had almost forgotten it existed. Now I will endeavor to do just that. Garbage - avoid, even fans of the genre will be sorely disappointed by this "Return". In fact, fans of the genre will see right through this blatant attempt at cash right away.

2 out of ten stars only because, as stated before, they might have had something here if only they'd paid attention to some - ANY - storyline beyond the cartoonish idea of an Indiana Jones-like professor (who comes off more like Ned Flanders) chasing some demonic statue. Good lord, even remembering it is making me cringe.

The sister of the survivor from the first film must go to the house on haunted hill... (technically, the only people returning are us, since all the characters are new). She has a connection to the house (much like her sister did) and the inmates there. Also, a professor and a bounty hunter are in search of an ancient relic.

I will say that the plot was good. There was an actual reason to go in the house, and I found it plausible -- well worth waiting nearly a decade for a sequel. The working in of the Knights Templar and the Baphomet statue was very nice, and will appeal to those who like the occult. I imagine a lot of horror fans also enjoy the works of Eliphas Levi and Aleister Crowley and will feel at home with the references -- it was certainly nothing new to me. (Although, historically, the Knights did not really worship Baphomet as the myth goes.)

Jeffrey Combs returns, and has a sizable role here. Not a large role, no real dialogue, but more than the five minutes he's had in other films the past few years ("Satanic" comes to mind). So his fans will appreciate that. And if you're a horror fan, you're probably a Combs fan. That man has really milked his success ever since 1986's "Re-Animator" and I see no signs of it slowing down yet. Put his name on the cover of a film and I'll rent it.

This film's strength is in the plot, and somewhat so in the acting. The characters are nothing special (they all have very one-dimensional motives) but they are acted superbly. Many will also enjoy the high blood content -- a man gets quartered, for example. And that's not the worst of it. There's even a death by refrigerator! Not quite creative on the level of, say, "Superstition" or even "2001 Maniacs", but not bad.

All you really need to know is if you liked the first film, you'll love this. Many reviewers have commented this is the better of the two, and I'm inclined to agree (although I'll still watch the original Vincent Price version over either of them). Solid story, good acting, blood... this is a horror film that goes above and beyond the typical straight-to-video schlock.

Boy, oh boy! It's like Hollywood doesn't even want us to go see movies anymore. This is a perfect example on how to completely ruin any chance on a cool series. The special effects were OK, but even low budget movies are approaching this level now...enough with the cheesy computer effects!! The quality of the fx were even lower in this than in the first movie. A scary nurse with only white, black, and grey makeup on? Woooooo!!! Super scary boys and girls!! And how the commando guy was quartered? I never knew a person EXPLODED when their limbs were torn off!!!!!! The tight camera shots and the spastic shaking (which i am most tired of seeing in movies) in most action scenes just go to show how little they spent on the sets, except for spider webs, was there some kind of crazy sale at the f/x store? The actors had the amazing ability to keep a strait face in uttering some of the worst dialogue i may have ever heard this side of an ED Wood movie. It is possible that the script was penned by the children of the studio execs, that would certainly clear a lot up. The actors also seem to have been told to show a complete lack of emotion during filming. I can understand fresh faces and all, but the acting in this was absolutely awful, no redeeming quality. Most situations in the movie are completely absurd, make no sense what so ever, and leave you wondering exactly who this is targeted at. This was filmed poorly, acted poorly, financed poorly, written poorly...you get the idea. Stay away from this. I watch bad horror for fun, lots of them. Want to see good/bad? See Santa's Slay, thats good, this is just horrid. It makes you wonder how Hollywood can complain that we movie goers don't see enough movies. When crappy movies like this keep getting pumped out by the dozen, lowering our IQ's by double digits, it's easy to see why Hollywood is imploding on itself. Note to Hollywood: Stop making these movies, save your money...a lot of it. Now hire some real script writers, don't let ANYONE revise the scripts! Make some really nice, large sets. Invest in some quality actors, but do they really need to make 20mill a film??? Some countries don't even have this kind of money! If they balk at a pay reduction...fire them. I'm sure they will be fine. Find camera people without nervous disorders. And remember, athletes, wrestlers, musicians, and friends of the family are NOT actors!!