House on Haunted Hill - the 1999 one, where Geoffrey Rush looks like Walt Disney. Man oh man when is the last time I watched this? In my whole life this is one of the very, very few movies that legitimately scared me. Core memory being in middle school, watching this in the basement late at night, lights out, and that scene where Geoffrey pulls around the guy in the security camera room and his face is carved out, immediately followed by the doctor guy on video shaking his head and walking like something not human, man it still holds up!
New thoughts, the whole thing is a great time capsule of the late 90s. The soundtrack, the look of it, like something from a Marilyn Manson video (and of course Manson is on the soundtrack with his cover of Sweet Dreams). I also really liked how Geoffrey Rush, even after he was set up to be killed by his wife, and even when he was throwing her around saying he was going to kill her, he still tried to save her after he threw her through the wall. It's so weird but at the same time makes a lot of sense. Oh, and the beginning at the roller coaster reminded me a lot of Final Destination, just the way it was shot, makes me wonder if they got some inspiration from that.
I'd call this a guilty pleasure but I don't feel guilty in liking it. Great horror flick. I bet there's a corner of the internet where people debated on how much autonomy the people who got killed by the rot of the house had lmbo. Chris Kattan's ghost giving Taye Diggs a way out and all.
Oh, one thing that surprised me, is how visceral the opening was, with the doctor doing his experiments while the nurse filmed. Showing the audience the knife going in the stomach and blood pooling out. Man, I could watch shit like this when I was a kid and not even flinch. Nowadays, forget it. Too real, man.
