#153: Return to House on Haunted Hill, Movies recommended or seen lately... les films a voir

Genre: Horror/Horreur

Annee/Year: 2007

Format: DVD

Return to house on Haunted Hill. This is the second part of the remake of this series. There are mixed feeligns about the remake so viewing it's sequel is definitely touchy ground. Victor Garcia, a newer director, attempted this task. Did he succed i would say yes and no.

I personnaly really like the atmosphere of the remake. The sequel is built around some solid new foundations and some new explanations are introduced to explain the mystery around the Haunted Hill mansion. This was a smart move and helps to set up the movie in a believable manner which was tough considering the end of the last film (why would anyone return to the location of such murders).

In this sencond movie, the only girl who managed to survive the last carnage, a few years earlier, is killed in her appartment through mysterious circumstances. It turns out she was doing studies (related to the Haunted Hill manor) on a pagan god statuette with evil powers. The movie rotates around three factions the sister (played by Amanda Righetti) and her boyfriend (played by Eric Palladino), the professor and his assistants ex-collegues of the dead sister and a third group of mercenary intent on finding the valuable statue at all cost.

The movie becomes a play between the three different groups who manage to all get stuck in the evil manor again... can they survie the whole night (hey deja vu?) From there it goes downhill as the movie is not half as scary or interesting as the first one.

Return to house on Haunted Hill. Une séquelle a un remake: sûrement une recette au désastre. Est-ce le cas? Pratiquement. Victor Garcia, le directeur, nous ramène dans la fameuse demeure maudite dans un de ces premiers longs métrages. La distribution est moyenne, la cinématographie adéquate ainsi que la qualité de production. Mais les effets et le résultat final ne sont pas au niveau.

Dans ce film on réussit à trouver une bonne histoire pour nous faire croire que trois groupes rivaux voudraient retourner sur le site maudit pour récupérer une précieuse statuette païenne maudite. La première partie du film fonctionne bien en nous faisant découvrir les personnages et leurs motivations. Mais le tout ne se termine pas bien, car l'expérience dans la maison n'a rien avoir avec le premier film de la série malheureusement.

Le remake était un film polarisant avec résultats que certains n’aimaient et d'autres pas. Le remake sera plus clair avec encore moins de personnes en faveur. Définitivement sans la magie du premier.

Great quotes:

Desmond: Mansions with their own mental wards. Only in fucking L.A.
...
Paul:[reading the newspaper reports on Sara's wall] Isn't this the House where all those people died a few years ago?
Ariel Wolfe: Yeah, my sister was one of the few that made it out alive.
Paul: I remember, seeing it on the news. Steven Price flipped out, went on a killing spree.
Ariel Wolfe: Well that's not what happened according to my sister.
Paul: What do you mean?
Ariel Wolfe: Sara believed the house was haunted, that Ghosts killed Price's party guests.
...
Kyle: Pretty creepy, isn't it? You know, they say that the souls of the people that died here apparently still haunt the house.
Michelle: You know, they also say that people who believe in ghost should be on Prozac.
Kyle: I'm sorry, Michelle, I wasn't listening, I was looking at your breasts.

Link: http://www.myspace.com/returntothehouse

Rating perso: 5.5/10