Best movie ever!

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

RELEASED TO VIDEO IN 2007 and directed by Víctor García, "Return to House on Haunted Hill" chronicles events when two factions enter the odd 'house' on the cliffside (actually an asylum) looking for a satanic idol on the very same night (!). One party consists of Ariel (Amanda Righetti) & her beau (Tom Riley) who had been kidnapped by a group of thugs looking for the priceless figurine (e.g. Erik Palladino & Calita Rainford). The other party consists of a college professor (Steven Pacey) and his student assistants (Andrew-Lee Potts & Cerina Vincent). Needless to say, all hell (literally) breaks loose. Jeffrey Combs is on hand as the house's resident mad doctor, Richard B. Vannacutt.This is a stand-alone sequel to the 1999 movie, "House on Haunted Hill," which I don't remember seeing, but I have seen the lame original 1959 film with Vincent Price. In any case, this sequel curiously adds the priceless Baphomet idol as the cause of Dr. Vannacutt's evil. It's an arbitrary plot device to get people back in the house and paves the way for subplots about suicides and gangsters, which are incongruent to the original film's simple premise (daring a group of strangers to stay in the house overnight for a million dollars). But does anyone really care about that in a direct-to-DVD stand-alone sequel? Not me. The question is: Does "Return" deliver as a competent haunted asylum flick? Palladino makes for a capable villain, the story's energetic, the asylum sets & CGI are creepily effective and there's a lot of gore. But I didn't care a wit about anyone who was threatened because the movie never took the time to establish characters for which the viewer might care. This is augmented by the fact that the bulk of the people are awfully unlikable, which destroys sympathy. There was no suspense or genuine scares. In one sequence, for instance, a man is literally drawn & quartered to bloody pieces and I busted out laughing. Also, for me, the film didn't deliver on the female front. Protagonist Righetti is decent, but comes across as a Grade-B Kate Beckinsale. Cerina Vincent is certainly one of the most voluptuously beautiful women to walk the planet, as seen in "It Waits" (2005) and "Sasquatch Mountain" (2006), but here she's painfully anorexic and in dire need of eating at McDonalds for four weeks straight. Calita Rainford is serviceable, but not enough is done with her and she doesn't last long anyway. There are a couple of fine-looking ghosts, however, in a lame wannabe-edgy lesbian sequence.The flick's just too by-the-numbers conventional, as far as modern horror goes, and evidently aimed at adolescent boys. There's no sense of artistry. If you want to see a haunted asylum film that balances conventional horror with kinetic editing & effects with an awesome sense of artistry, see 2005's "Death Tunnel" (and, no, I'm not kidding; see my review for details). THE MOVIE RUNS 79 minutes and was shot in Sofia & Burgas, Bulgaria, and Los Angeles. WRITER: Robb White. GRADE: C- (4.5/10)

This movie is so underrated 4.6 just because it is a sequel. People are very bias about sequel. It is true sometimes they do suck. But people are so bias that when a sequel does suck you can not tell because they are always say every sequel suck. Most sequel are better then the original and this movie is no expectation. House on Haunted hill (1959) is very scary. House on haunted hill (1999) is also very scary. But this is scarier. This is one of the scariest movies of all time. This movie has a great story line. It also has great acting. It also has great special effects. Amanda Righetti is a great actress. Cerina Vincent is a also a great actress. All the House on haunted hill movie are most sees.

I'm not sure as a whole if this one needed to be made or not,, think maybe they should have titled it differently since it really didn't follow it's predecessor. yeah there is some backstory,, and the Dr. is creepy, I just didn't buy into all of the Knights Templar stuff and the occult stuff going on,, not to say it didn't happen that way,, I just didn't buy into it,, the acting is not the greatest.. but the special effects were a home run,, always nice to have half naked,, women running around in a horror film, the film had some laughs,, lot's of blood guts and gore which was good , this film was slightly above average if you ignore it as a sequel and to try and just what it like pretending its got a different name,, that's how I enjoyed it better.

It seems the crew members of the film really weren't attempting to produce a real film.The main villain has henchmen, because he couldn't possible hold two people hostage with them driving. Of course, the henchmen serve no purpose afterwards, so shortly after entering the house they die.It becomes so ridiculous that one henchman left outside gets called inside by the titular building, and almost immediately after meeting the rest of the group gets spooked and runs off, leading to his death. Literally the movie goes no further than going through the motions.A haunted house requires some level of atmosphere. This movie has nothing remotely resembling atmosphere. Even repeating the history of the building would have helped since the original came out eight years beforehand and wasn't anything memorable so expecting viewers not to remember would be logical, especially since back stories are usually repeated in horror sequel films anyways.Despite knowing the antagonistic characters are going to die, it didn't occur to the crew they could keep things interesting by keeping some characters' fates unpredictable. Yet only three characters including the lead couple don't end up becoming antagonists. Apparently the writing wasn't bad enough so the only character whose fate was in question is offed shortly after the group realize there's anything strange going on.