Warner Bros./Dark Castle
1999 Color/B&W
93 Mins.
Horror/Thriller
Geoffrey Rush, Ali Larter, Taye Diggs, Famke Janseen, Chris Kattan, Bridgette Wilson, Lisa Loeb, Peter Gallagher and Jeffrey Combs star.
Written by Dick Beebe
Directed by William Malone
Rated R for Language, Violence, Nudity and Gore.
Alas the dreaded horror remake. William Malone directed this 1999 update of the classic Vincent Price original. The film tells the tale of a haunted mental asylum where seven strangers are invited for a birthday party and offered a million dollars if they survive the night. Horror ensues of course. The thing is this movie is kind of awesome for the first 90 mins. It builds a nice playful atmosphere of fake out shocks and disturbing imagery as well as some real suspense. The cast is awesome. Janseen and Rush are deliciously dark as the unhappily married couple while Ali Larter adds some spunk, Wilson some sassiness and Combs his iconic but sadly under used weirdness. Only Diggs seems out of place with his faux attitude. The film is directed well and there's some really creative imagery. In fact I don't think there's ever been a house of horrors quite like this even to date. The film also benefits from a winning sense of dark humor throughout. Not all the gags payoff and the CGI ghost spectacle at the end is way dated. But until the good ghost/I'm Adopted ending it's damn good. But damn that ending is unintentionally funny. Still this update of Hill still stands as one of the better remakes and is the film that started off dark castle for better or worse. ***.5/5
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