house on haunted hill

Director: william malone

Actor: geoffrey rush,famke janssen,taye diggs,peter gallagher

Data Published: Fri Oct 29 1999

Genres: Crime,Fantasy,Horror,Mystery,Thriller

Key Words: haunted hospital,characters killed one by one,haunted house,strapped to a bed,breasts

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185371/

WIKI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_on_Haunted_Hill_(1999_film)

Description: House on Haunted Hill is a movie starring Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, and Taye Diggs. An amusement park mogul offers a group of diverse people $1,000,000 to spend the night in a haunted house with a horrifying past.

Plot: In 1931 the mental patients at the Vannacutt Institute for the Criminally Insane revolt against the staff headed by the sadistic Dr. Richard Vannacutt. The patients start a fire which engulfs the building, killing all of the inmates and all but five of the staff. In 1999, Evelyn Stockard-Price (Famke Janssen), a spoiled trophy wife, is in a disintegrating marriage with Steven Price (Geoffrey Rush), an amusement park mogul with a wicked sense of humor. At Evelyn's insistence, Price leases the hospital from the owner, Watson Pritchett (Chris Kattan), for her birthday party. She gives Price a lengthy guest list; he shreds it to spite her and then creates one of his own. Five guests arrive for the party - Jennifer Jenzen (Ali Larter), Eddie Baker (Taye Diggs), Melissa Margaret Marr (Bridgette Wilson), Dr. Donald Blackburn (Peter Gallagher), and Pritchett himself. The guests are not the ones Price invited and neither Evelyn nor Price know who they are. Despite this, Price continues the party's theme, offering $1 million to each guest who stays in the house and survives until morning. Those who die forfeit their $1 million to the survivors. The security gates are tripped, locking everyone inside. After finding some handguns, Jennifer, Eddie and Pritchett decide to take one of the guns and search the basement for the machinery which controls the gates. Price believes the trap is a stunt organized by Evelyn. As Eddie and Jennifer explore the dungeon-like basement, Jennifer confesses to Eddie that her real name is Sara Wolfe, and that she's an out-of-work assistant to the real Jennifer Jenzen. She attended the party in Jennifer's place because she needed the prize money. However, the two are separated, and Sara is nearly drowned in a tank of blood by a ghost impersonating Eddie, though the real Eddie arrives in time to save her. Melissa disappears when she wanders off in the basement, leaving behind a massive trail of blood. Price visits his assistant Schechter, who is supposed to be managing the party stunts, but finds him horribly mutilated. On the surveillance monitor he sees the ghost of Dr. Vannacutt walking around with a bloody scalpel. Shortly after, Evelyn dies in front of the others, when they find she has been strapped to an electroshock therapy table. Furious, Price pulls a gun on the guests, demanding to know which one of them killed his wife. Sara nearly shoots him, but Eddie knocks him out before either one can kill the other. The remaining guests lock Price in the "Saturation Chamber", an archaic device that Vannacut used to treat schizophrenics. Blackburn volunteers to stay behind to guard Price, but when the others leave he turns the chamber on, leaving Price to be tortured by the moving images and ghostly hallucinations until it drives him into having a seizure. Meanwhile, Sara and Eddie find Vannacut's office. Inside, they find a portrait of all the head staff and realize that all the party guests are descendants of the five surviving staff from the 1931 fire. Pritchett explains that the spirits themselves created the guest list by hacking into Price's computer. The only exception is Blackburn, whose name does not appear among the staff. Blackburn is revealed as Evelyn's lover and Evelyn in fact faked her death by electrocution. Together the two are plotting to frame Price for the murders, hoping one of the party will kill him in self-defense. Evelyn stabs Blackburn to add another victim to the mix and releases a delirious Price from the chamber. Sara discovers Price covered in blood and Blackburn's head hanging from the door of the Saturation Chamber. Believing that he is Blackburn's murderer, Sara shoots him. After the others return upstairs, Evelyn approaches Price to gloat, and Price, protected by a bullet-proof vest, attempts to kill Evelyn. The two scuffle before Price throws her through a decaying door. Inside the rotting room, the two realize they just stumbled upon the evil core of the house. The Darkness – a dark, shape-shifting creature composed of the spirits in the house – awakens and begins to take form. Evelyn is captured and killed by the Darkness. Trying to escape the monstrous apparition, Price stumbles upon the remains of Melissa, neatly dissected and arranged as an anatomical display. The Darkness emerges in front of Price, revealing that it is composed of "everyone who died and is responsible". Pritchett is killed by The Darkness, allowing Price to evade it. Price tells Sara and Eddie not only that Pritchett was right, but that the house really is alive and deduces that the only way to get out is through the attic. The three flee as The Darkness begins to seep through the house, manipulating the walls and shattering the floors as it chases them. Price activates a pulley that reveals an opening in the window of the attic. When the Darkness seeps into the attic, Price sacrifices himself to give the others time to escape, but the Darkness closes the iron gate after Sara escapes, trapping Eddie inside. As the Darkness prepares to assimilate Eddie, Pritchett's ghost appears and opens the iron gate. The Darkness is distracted by Pritchett long enough for Eddie to escape out of the window to Sara. Pritchett's ghost and the Darkness then both fade away. As Sara and Eddie watch the sun rise, they notice an envelope on the ledge. It contains all five $1 million checks, made out to cash.