House on Haunted Hill: Critic Reviews

House on Haunted Hill is a sorry reincarnation of the 1950s William Castle horror film.

As in The Haunting, they eventually surrender characters and story to computer-generated spectacle, squandering any creepy immediacy and trampling the human element.

Slow-moving, yawn-inducing.

Directed with a nimble, savvy touch.

Consistently inert -- even though the fee for successful housesitting has been raised to a million bucks a night.

Fails to deliver even one good 'boo!' moment.

Drained of any wild, spontaneous spark.

It's a cheesy throwaway horror flick, but it's a tight cheesy throwaway horror flick.

[It's] one of the great underrated horror flicks of the last decade. Yes, really.

Quarts of shiny blood are splashed around and numerous moans and groans pepper the soundtrack, but astonishingly, the movie never manages to provoke so much as a shudder.

...An excellent show of digi-graphics. But it is seldom scary.

There's a great deal of general creepiness, but the enterprise is undercut by a weak script, weak characters, and a too simple plot.

The mix of laughs, shocks and gruesomeness is much the same as in the two Tales from the Crypt movies, but Malone coaxes a slightly fresher flavour, taking on board the influence of David Fincher and even Lars von Trier.

All the visual bravura doesn't fill in the gaping plot holes or generate any real frights.

It won't exercise your grey matter, but it may well give your inner child pause for thought

This is almost a green light. If you considered yourself a connoisseur of horror films, you'll be disappointed. If you are easily scared then you will love it.

House On Haunted Hill is not only never scary, it's never even interesting.

Trading genuine chills for cheesy computer-generated effects, this House should have been condemned.

If Geoffrey Rush has any sense, he's sitting in his kitchen right now with a stack of his press materials and a bottle of correction fluid