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House on Haunted Hill | 1999 | R | - 5.9.7

An adaptation of the eponymous William Castle film from 1958, this horror film takes place in a haunted mansion where several people are spending the night to earn $1 million each -- if they survive -- from a demented millionaire. With Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Taye Diggs, Ali Larter, Bridgette Wilson, Peter Gallagher, Chris Kattan, Jeffrey Combs, Lisa Loeb and James Marsters. [1:55]

SEX/NUDITY 5 - Some sexual innuendo and a few kisses (in one scene, a man kisses a woman passionately while briefly caressing her clothed breasts and thigh). All nudity is shown as fairly brief glimpses: we see a naked woman hanging from leather (her buttocks and the sides and tops of her breasts are visible), a nude woman in water (her breasts and buttocks are visible), bare breasts and two bare female buttocks. We see cleavage-revealing outfits in a few scenes.

VIOLENCE/GORE 9 - Patients attack their attendants, throwing people against walls, drowning someone in a bathtub full of water and poking a bundle of pencils through a man's neck (we see lots of blood on his neck and mouth). A woman stabs a man in the abdomen repeatedly (we see lots of blood on his torso, her hands and the knife) and a woman shoots a man many times (he has blood on his hands and shirt and she gets blood on her dress). Huge, dark ghosts attack people and "suck" them in and ghosts grab a woman and turn her into skeleton. A man becomes charred and explodes. A surgeon makes an incision on a conscious man's chest; he screams and we see lots of blood well up on his chest. A man's head is used as a basketball and we see a man with a huge, bloody cavity where his face used to be. A man cuts his hand while breaking a glass window; he screams when another man pours alcohol on the wound. A man jumps into vat of blood and a woman is nearly sucked into it as she struggles to rescue him. A man is gagged and put into water with a woman who drools blood before turning into a monster. A woman's body jerks violently during electroshock therapy. A man pulls a woman's hair and she bites his hand, a man chokes a woman and throws her around and we see a fistfight with punches and rolling on the floor (we also hear a gunshot during this scene). A glass ceiling collapses on people and metal bars slam down trapping people inside a house. We see lots of blood: puddles of blood on the floor, blood on walls and ceilings, blood dripping or gushing from people's mouths, bloody facial cuts, bloody hands and arms and blood on sheets and clothing. We see a bloody head, bloody eviscerated body parts and a bloody, decapitated corpse; we also see a room of decayed corpses and skeletons several times, a group of charred corpses, a head in a glass with stitches on its eyes and mouth, many faces of dead people appearing in the dark, quick flashes of monsters and blood, a man with glowing eyes, a ghost holding a bloody knife and walking jerkily, and disembodied images of eyes, faces and monsters. In a couple of scenes a house falls apart and explodes. We see an elevator that appears to be crashing and a scary roller coaster ride. A man is caught on a dizzying carousel and a couple are stuck on a high ledge. We hear disembodied screams and voices throughout movie.

LANGUAGE 7 - About 21 F-words, many mild obscenities and scatological references and a few anatomical references.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Haunted houses, mental institutions, murder, betrayal, revenge.

MESSAGE - Some houses are alive; revenge is sweet.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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