House on Haunted Hill

Despite featuring the usually respectable and potentially very ghoulish Geoffrey Rush in a snarling Vincent Price reinterpretation, House on Haunted Hill is not only never scary, it's never even interesting. An unmotivated, throw-money-at-the-screen remake of one of those vintage cornball horror flicks that made the late Mr. Price a household name, the story features the usual group of strangers (Ali Larter, Taye Diggs, Bridgette Wilson, Peter Gallagher, Famke Janssen and Chris Kattan) trapped overnight in an abandoned, poorly-lit mansion (and former insane asylum) that comes alive and tries to snuff them all. You know the drill. Director William Malone tries to put a few new twists on this covered-in-cobwebs concept and gets grossly graphic with Hellraiser-like flashes of tortured ghosts, but none of it adds any punch to this narcoleptic pap. Not recommended. (R. Blackwelder)