Stay with me on this. The House on Haunted Hill (1959) was a cheesy William Castle-produced bit of gory fluff that featured Vincent Price and (in its theatrical incarnation) an inflatable skeleton that came out during the climax. The gimmick was called “Emergo!” (Castle loved such gimmicks, and came up with lots of them in the 50s. He was the inspiration for John Goodman’s character in Matinee!) It was an original story. I suspect the remake at least claims to be inspired by this, but I haven’t seen it.
**The Haunting of Hell House ** (1973) is a film based on the novel “Hell House” by the legendary Richard Matheson. It has Roddy MacDowell in it, so there’s a high cheese potential, at least. I haven’t seen it.
Neither of these is to be confused with the film The Haunting, directed by the late Robert Wise and based on Shirley Jackson’s classic novel “The Haunting of Hill House” The film is pretty good. Russ Tamblyn is in it, but by 1963 he hadn’t become cheesy yet. The film was remade in 1999, and I’ll bet the remake is awful. An alternate title of the remake is “The Haunting of Hill House”
I’ll bet Castle encouraged confusion between “House on Haunted Hill” and “The Haunting of Hill House”.
By the way, I know Stephen King has written lovingly about it in Danse Macabre, and Jacksonm is an acknowledged master of literate horro. But I can’t stand The Haunting of Hill House*.
There is nothing good about this movie, but even when Mathilda May isn’t wandering through it stark naked, it’s still remarkably watchable.
(Interestingly, it’s based on an SF novel by Colin Wilson called The Space Vampires, which, despite the lurid title, is one of the dullest things I’ve ever read. [And I’ve read John Lyons’ Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics.])
Tremors, mostly for the brilliant ensemble cast. I heard an interview with Kevin Bacon where he refers to this point as the low moment of his career. Well, in the immortal words of Valentine McKee “F**********K YOU!”
The New Kids. Brilliant '80s film which tackled the tough issue of the suddenly orphaned “good kids” going to live a new town with their eccentric uncle who owned an amusement park. Best part of this film is that James Spader plays the bad kid/local drug dealer who cruises around in a purple Dodge van.
Since Roadhouse has already been mentioned, and while we’re contemplating the Kurt Russell fascination, I have to contribute one of my other all-time favorite doog movies: Escape from New York
But about its sequel, all I can say is: what sequel?
One I saw the other night during a bout of insomnia Naked Weapon. Crazy plot, lots of over-the-top martial arts fight scenes between women, implied lesbianism, and a cop that seemingly doesn’t age.
I actually paid to see this one in the theater. One of the few movies I know where the opening scene was worth every penny. Just like when we watched Super Troopers, my friend turned to me after that first scene and said “If the movie ended there, I’d be completely satisfied.”
Ong Bak: Thai Warrior Absolutely incredible action sequences, absolutely horrible plot and dialogue and acting. In a ‘so bad that it’s good’ sort of way, I mean.