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Lexmark3200
08-17-2005, 11:18 AM
EVIL LOVES TO PARTY.

It's always fun to compare the two versions of these films back to back, and Warner, with its DVD release of the 1999 William Malone remake, offers a great way of doing that with a special feature on the disc called A TALE OF TWO HOUSES, which compares what went into the 1958 version (complete with footage from William Castle and his promotional methods used in introducing crowds to films like House on Haunted Hill and The Tingler) and looks at the special effects used to advance the 1999 remake; the documentary is worth the price of this disc alone --- which everywhere I have seen it is never more than six, seven or perhaps eight dollars.

I can remember walking out of this when it debuted in theaters and being more impressed with Jan De Bont's The Haunting remake, if you can believe that.....since that time, after multiple viewings of this William Malone remake of the Vincent Price/William Castle chiller on DVD, my opinion has switched sides of the fence. First of all, the parallels between this remake and the original are fascinating to point out and witness --- notably Malone's cast choices for lead spots. Taking over Vincent Price's role from the original as the host for a "party" for his wife is Geoffrey Rush, who I believe, fell into one of the best performances of his current career next to Pirates of the Caribbean here; Malone has cleverly given Rush a character with the last name of "Price" as well as a pencil-thin mustache, paying direct and obvious homage to the legendary Vincent Price. Rush, in this remake, plays twisted theme park mogul Steven Price, and he plays the role with such sarcasm and humorous overtones that it's simply brilliant in my opinion. But before we get to what transpires here, let's take a look at the very beginning of the film, which sets up Malone's take on Castle's original tale.

The 1999 version --- created in conjunction with Dark Castle Entertainment via Warner Brothers --- opens with shots of a tower-looking structure just at the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean; the house has obviously changed in this remake from a haunted mansion in the original to this asylum for the mentally insane----the Vanacutt Institute, run by madman surgeon Richard Vanacutt; the beginning of the film has us witness a riot inside the asylum, where the freaks of this institute seek revenge on Vanacutt and his staff for performing ghastly, horriffic experimental surgeries on them. What ensues is a takeover of the facility by these creeps, who end up killing Vanacutt and his staff --- but not before Vancutt locks down the facility and everyone inside burns to death.....as he sees it, if he was going to die, they all were going to die.

We then flash-foward years later to the present, where a very sexy Famke Janssen is taking a bath and watching a show hosted by Peter Graves which is exploring the possibility that the Vanacutt Institute is haunted; she immediately gets the idea that she wants to host her birthday party here at the closed-down asylum, and informs her theme park mogul husband (Rush). While Janssen has a list of guests in mind she would like to invite, Rush shreds HER guest list and comes up with one of his own----but as we find out later, HIS list is destroyed as well, and who ends up getting invited to this "party" at the abandoned Vanacutt Institute are complete strangers.....or so we think.

This group is comprised of Taye Diggs, Ali Larter, Bridgette Wilson and Peter Gallagher, plus, in a clever twist and parallel move by Malone, the "caretaker" of the institute (just as in the first film, even bearing the same name) played by a hysterical Chris Kattan, whose family apparently died during some "accidents" in remodeling the institute after the riot which shut it down. The guests arrive --- in a fashion used almost exactly by Castle in the original --- in a row of limousines with a strange but appropriately creepy version of "Sweet Dreams are Made of This" by Marilyn Manson playing in the background; as far as these people know, they were all invited to this party by amusement park mogul Steven Price --- but they don't even know who he is off the bat, already making us suspicious of what is going on here.

After some comedic bantering from Kattan, who tries to get the group of "guests" for the "party" up to the house for Rush, the group all congreate in the main hallway, still uncertain who Rush's character is or even why they were invited to this party. Rush is already waiting for them, and when Janssen shows up and asks "who the **** are all of you?" because she has no idea why her guest list was shredded by Rush, the film really begins to develop. Kattan knows secrets of this asylum's past......secrets of madman Doctor Richard Vanacutt and what happened here.....but Rush and Janssen, just like Vincent Price and his wife in the original, are already upstairs in a bedroom exchanging threats and stories of attempting killing each other --- a fascinating parallel move by Malone. Janssen wonders who these people are who are downstairs at her party when she didn't invite them----and so does Rush because HE didn't invite them either; it seems neither believes the other.

What follows is what you can imagine....the asylum is indeed haunted, and we are exposed to wild special effects usage in comparison to the skeletons flying around on strings from the original; Kattan attempts to explain that there is an "evil" inside the asylum from the carnage of what happened here years ago --- that the spirit of Vanacutt and his victims are haunting the walls of this building and they won't be able to escape. Rush does not seem to be influenced by this story, and offers one million dollars to each person who is willing to spend the night in the asylum (another parallel to the original).....assuming they "survive" as he puts it; if there is a single person left by daybreak who hasn't "died" (going along with what he thinks is a ridiculous ghost story by Kattan) then five million dollars goes to that one person. But Kattan knows something they all don't----and he wants out of that asylum right away. Unfortunately, the old lockdown mechanism, which Vanacutt used to trap and burn his rioting patients years ago, kicks in and locks all of them in the place with no escape, dropping massive metal plates over the windows and doors. We are lead to believe that Rush is behind this, as he has hired a technician from his amusement park operations to come into the house and play tricks on the guests, but what unfolds is another confusing plot --- just like in the original --- regarding Rush and his desire to kill his wife and blame it on a member of these "guests", as well as the direct opposite: Janssen's desire to kill HIM and have someone else in the group be responsible for it. There is then the subplot, as in the original as well, of an affair between Janssen and Peter Gallagher's character, who have supposedly been plotting Rush's death before this "party" and they have it set up so that it seems like Janssen was killed in an electroshock therapy chamber by accident, but it's really staged so Gallagher and her can be toegther; it gets pretty silly and confusing, and even moreso when Rush appears to be shot by one of the guests because they are all lead to believe that HE killed his wife, but is indeed alive as he grabs Janssen by the throat when she approaches him, thinking he has been shot dead, exclaiming "You must think I'm stupid! I'M STEVEN G-D DAMN PRICE!!" exposing a bullet-proof vest beneath his shirt. Price then goes on to scream into Janssen's face the fact that he was aware of her cheating with Gallagher the whole time, and now he is indeed going to kill her for it. It seems the spirits of the asylum have other plans, as Janssen's body is dragged by a fog-like ghost creature into another "world" and this is where the film begins to get a bit ridiculous as an overuse of special effects are utilized here which ruins an otherwise effective ghost story re-telling.

There is another subplot which is developed, regarding the fact that everyone who was invited to this party was somehow related to Vanacutt's staff members who survived the riot and fire at the asylum --- all except Gallagher, who was obviously in on the plot to kill Rush because of the affair he was having with Janssen; it gets a bit confusing, but it was Malone's attempt at adding some differences between the two films and their respective plots. I'm not going to give away the ending for those of you who never got around to seeing this 1999 remake of House on Haunted Hill and who actually feel as if you want to rent or buy it just for fun on a lonely evening (the disc is priced very cheaply most everywhere, as I said, not even going beyond 10 bucks, and I believe this title is worth it). Just to say----the effects used at the end ruin, as I mentioned, what was a creepy (but a bit confusing at points) re-telling of Castle's story with a fabulous performance by Geoffrey Rush (but a ridiculous, useless "bad boy from the ghetto ex-baseball-player" performance from Taye Diggs---a HORRIBLE choice in casting) in addition to a brilliant use of parallel character development on Malone's behalf -- such as using Chris Kattan as the "caretaker" of this place sharing the exact same name as the character from the original, both of whom know the secrets behind these haunted "houses."

And it's the interior sets of Malone's remake that make this film so effective --- as the characters are walking around with flashlights in the basement of the old Vanacutt asylum, the atmosphere that Malone creates is downright chilling, as we see remnants of the old equipment that was used to torture the patients in the asylum, the machinery and rooms such as electroshock therapy, flashbacks to Vanacutt and his torture chambers in this place----it all makes for a rather disturbing tension and atmosphere which carries this film's running pace until the end, where the special effects team takes over and ruins it, in my opinion.

There is also another fascinating parallel between Castle's original and Malone's remake whereby the guests of this party are given handguns in little "coffins" (just like in Castle's version) to defend themselves with, as Rush attempts to suggest that they are going to come in contact with "things that go bump in the night" in order to survive the night in this place----but does he REALLY believe that, or is he cooking up a story for these guests? It's something that always leaves us wondering, as was Malone's intention. But I must say....it gets downright frustrating to try and figure out after awhile!

What is exactly going on here? Did the asylum itself invite these guests for the party? Did Rush want to kill his wife and vice versa? As Rush himself says "I'm sure the unexplainable will explain herself before long....." and I will leave you folks who haven't seen this yet (or who possibly have) to answer those --- and the many others you will have --- questions for yourselves. Better than Jan De Bont's The Haunting in terms of an effective remake? Yes, I think so.....although it's a tossup as to how much money Malone and De Bont poured into the special effects for each of these remakes in order to out-do one another; the story and acting in The Haunting get downright atrocious at times ---- even from Liam Neeson --- but there is no denying DreamWorks created a demo quality DTS ES DVD presentation for that title that's worth watching the film alone for.

What Warner Brothers has given us with their bargain-basement-priced DVD release of 1999's House on Haunted Hill is not bargain-basement in terms of audio, video and especially extra material. Housed in one of their terrible "snapper case" packages, this once disc release was pretty impressive for the price it gets. The only other complaint I have about the packaging is the cover artwork----couldn't Warner Brothers have come up with a better art scheme than a red palm print and the faces of the characters on front (with TAYE DIGGS IN THE LARGEST PICTURE of them all, who had the WORST performance in the film) with the words "Evil Loves to Party"?

VIDEO SPECIFICATIONS:
"DUAL LAYER WIDESCREEN VERSION PRESENTED IN A "MATTED" WIDESCREEN FORMAT PRESERVING THE ASPECT RATIO OF ITS ORIGINAL THEATRICAL EXHIBITION, ENHANCED FOR WIDESCREEN TVs"

In Warner Brothers' speak, that means this was either a 1:78 or 1:85:1 ratio transfer, as there was no letterboxing on my screen and as the word "matted" hinted at; this was, from what I could tell, a middle-of-the-road transfer from the WB, which for the most part from beginning to end remains rich, smooth and clean but appears, at times, "smoky" in certain shots, probably an intentional effect by Malone and team. This won't be a disc you'll pull off your shelf to show off your video system, but you can't really go into this expecting that. The colors don't leap off the screen here, but the overall look of the print is clean and dirt free, and dare I say I did not detect any grain during the viewing of this? In the end, a transfer I simply cannot complain about.

AUDIO SPECIFICATIONS:
ENGLISH DOLBY DIGITAL 5.1, SUBTITLES IN ENGLISH & FRENCH

Another middle-of-the-road Dolby Digital 5.1 track for a Warner Brothers title, but the mix gets the job done here----no doubt. There is only one problem, and this has been confirmed for me by other staff members who review for other sites and publications, that it does seem as if the dialogue on this Dolby track has been mixed CONSIDERABLY lower than the remainder of the soundrack --- perhaps not as bad as Warner's Executive Decision --- but the lack of center channel dialogue presence and "power" is definitely apparent and evident. There is good use of the LFE channel, as the metal plates of the Vanacutt Asylum begin slamming down are accompanied by nice thuds of bass; there are other usages of the subwoofer channel throughout the presentation as well. Surrounds are used effectively here----demonic moaning, cries of tortured patients, the thudding of insane crazies on the roof of the asylum---are all rendered perfectly in the surround channels----not drawing too much attention to them, but definitely drawing you into this film. Most effective, believe it or not, were the quieter moments, when characters are walking around the basement of the asylum, through creepy empty cooridors, and the sounds of dripping water pipes are gently making their way into the rear channels --- a great sense of environment is created here. Also worth listening for are the whispers of the tortured souls caught and trapped in Vanacutt's asylum, which make their way right into your surrounds and add to the strange environment Malone's film creates. All around, an effective Dolby 5.1 mix, which at first would have ordinarily had me screaming "DTS! DTS!" but what we have here gets the job done once you bring your system up high enough; very effective surround mix for a haunted "asylum" tale.

Also worth noting is the fashion in which Marilyn Manson's remake of "Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This" is redered on this 5.1 mix as the cars are bringing the guests to the "party"; there is a three-dimensionality to the song during this part of the soundtrack that was utilized brilliantly by the engineers; the song almost seems to be coming from the depths of your speakers, and hard to "locate" if you can understand what I mean----an effective use of music on a surround track indeed.

The extras, as I had mentioned, make this disc shine even more; the documentary comparing Castle's version of the film and Malone's is pretty fascinating to watch, quite frankly, and more than makes up for the stripped down Alpha Video release of the original (although I was not expecting more from that). Also included were:

-Enhanced Features for DVD ROM PC
-Web Events and Chat Room Access
-Genre Essays
-Original Theatrical Website
-Sampler Trailers
-Behind the Scenes Documentaries
-Director Commentary
-Deleted Scenes
-Interactive Menus (very effective, along the lines of DreamWorks' The Haunting DVD menu)
-Filmographies
-Theatrical Trailers
-Scene Access (of course)

Lexmark3200
08-18-2005, 01:17 PM
EVIL LOVES TO PARTY.

It's always fun to compare the two versions of these films back to back, and Warner, with its DVD release of the 1999 William Malone remake, offers a great way of doing that with a special feature on the disc called A TALE OF TWO HOUSES, which compares what went into the 1958 version (complete with footage from William Castle and his promotional methods used in introducing crowds to films like House on Haunted Hill and The Tingler) and looks at the special effects used to advance the 1999 remake; the documentary is worth the price of this disc alone --- which everywhere I have seen it is never more than six, seven or perhaps eight dollars.

I can remember walking out of this when it debuted in theaters and being more impressed with Jan De Bont's The Haunting remake, if you can believe that.....since that time, after multiple viewings of this William Malone remake of the Vincent Price/William Castle chiller on DVD, my opinion has switched sides of the fence. First of all, the parallels between this remake and the original are fascinating to point out and witness --- notably Malone's cast choices for lead spots. Taking over Vincent Price's role from the original as the host for a "party" for his wife is Geoffrey Rush, who I believe, fell into one of the best performances of his current career next to Pirates of the Caribbean here; Malone has cleverly given Rush a character with the last name of "Price" as well as a pencil-thin mustache, paying direct and obvious homage to the legendary Vincent Price. Rush, in this remake, plays twisted theme park mogul Steven Price, and he plays the role with such sarcasm and humorous overtones that it's simply brilliant in my opinion. But before we get to what transpires here, let's take a look at the very beginning of the film, which sets up Malone's take on Castle's original tale.

The 1999 version --- created in conjunction with Dark Castle Entertainment via Warner Brothers --- opens with shots of a tower-looking structure just at the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean; the house has obviously changed in this remake from a haunted mansion in the original to this asylum for the mentally insane----the Vanacutt Institute, run by madman surgeon Richard Vanacutt; the beginning of the film has us witness a riot inside the asylum, where the freaks of this institute seek revenge on Vanacutt and his staff for performing ghastly, horrific experimental surgeries on them. What ensues is a takeover of the facility by these creeps, who end up killing Vanacutt and his staff --- but not before Vanacutt locks down the facility and everyone inside burns to death.....as he sees it, if he was going to die, they all were going to die.

We then flash-forward years later to the present, where a very sexy Famke Janssen is taking a bath and watching a show hosted by Peter Graves which is exploring the possibility that the Vanacutt Institute is haunted; she immediately gets the idea that she wants to host her birthday party here at the closed-down asylum, and informs her theme park mogul husband (Rush). While Janssen has a list of guests in mind she would like to invite, Rush shreds HER guest list and comes up with one of his own----but as we find out later, HIS list is destroyed as well, and who ends up getting invited to this "party" at the abandoned Vanacutt Institute are complete strangers.....or so we think.

This group is comprised of Taye Diggs, Ali Larter, Bridgette Wilson and Peter Gallagher, plus, in a clever twist and parallel move by Malone, the "caretaker" of the institute (just as in the first film, even bearing the same name) played by a hysterical Chris Kattan, whose family apparently died during some "accidents" in remodeling the institute after the riot which shut it down. The guests arrive --- in a fashion used almost exactly by Castle in the original --- in a row of limousines with a strange but appropriately creepy version of "Sweet Dreams are Made of This" by Marilyn Manson playing in the background; as far as these people know, they were all invited to this party by amusement park mogul Steven Price --- but they don't even know who he is off the bat, already making us suspicious of what is going on here.

After some comedic bantering from Kattan, who tries to get the group of "guests" for the "party" up to the house for Rush, the group all congregate in the main hallway, still uncertain who Rush's character is or even why they were invited to this party. Rush is already waiting for them, and when Janssen shows up and asks "who the f***k are all of you?" because she has no idea why her guest list was shredded by Rush, the film really begins to develop. Kattan knows secrets of this asylum's past......secrets of madman Doctor Richard Vanacutt and what happened here.....but Rush and Janssen, just like Vincent Price and his wife in the original, are already upstairs in a bedroom exchanging threats and stories of attempting killing each other --- a fascinating parallel move by Malone. Janssen wonders who these people are who are downstairs at her party when she didn't invite them----and so does Rush because HE didn't invite them either; it seems neither believes the other.

What follows is what you can imagine....the asylum is indeed haunted, and we are exposed to wild special effects usage in comparison to the skeletons flying around on strings from the original; Kattan attempts to explain that there is an "evil" inside the asylum from the carnage of what happened here years ago --- that the spirit of Vanacutt and his victims are haunting the walls of this building and they won't be able to escape. Rush does not seem to be influenced by this story, and offers one million dollars to each person who is willing to spend the night in the asylum (another parallel to the original).....assuming they "survive" as he puts it; if there is a single person left by daybreak who hasn't "died" (going along with what he thinks is a ridiculous ghost story by Kattan) then five million dollars goes to that one person. But Kattan knows something they all don't----and he wants out of that asylum right away. Unfortunately, the old lockdown mechanism, which Vanacutt used to trap and burn his rioting patients years ago, kicks in and locks all of them in the place with no escape, dropping massive metal plates over the windows and doors. We are lead to believe that Rush is behind this, as he has hired a technician from his amusement park operations to come into the house and play tricks on the guests, but what unfolds is another confusing plot --- just like in the original --- regarding Rush and his desire to kill his wife and blame it on a member of these "guests", as well as the direct opposite: Janssen's desire to kill HIM and have someone else in the group be responsible for it. There is then the subplot, as in the original as well, of an affair between Janssen and Peter Gallagher's character, who have supposedly been plotting Rush's death before this "party" and they have it set up so that it seems like Janssen was killed in an electroshock therapy chamber by accident, but it's really staged so Gallagher and her can be together; it gets pretty silly and confusing, and even more so when Rush appears to be shot by one of the guests because they are all lead to believe that HE killed his wife, but is indeed alive as he grabs Janssen by the throat when she approaches him, thinking he has been shot dead, exclaiming "You must think I'm stupid! I'M STEVEN G-D DAMN PRICE!!" exposing a bulletproof vest beneath his shirt. Price then goes on to scream into Janssen's face the fact that he was aware of her cheating with Gallagher the whole time, and now he is indeed going to kill her for it. It seems the spirits of the asylum have other plans, as Janssen's body is dragged by a fog-like ghost creature into another "world" and this is where the film begins to get a bit ridiculous as an overuse of special effects are utilized here which ruins an otherwise effective ghost story re-telling.

There is another subplot which is developed, regarding the fact that everyone who was invited to this party was somehow related to Vanacutt's staff members who survived the riot and fire at the asylum --- all except Gallagher, who was obviously in on the plot to kill Rush because of the affair he was having with Janssen; it gets a bit confusing, but it was Malone's attempt at adding some differences between the two films and their respective plots. I'm not going to give away the ending for those of you who never got around to seeing this 1999 remake of House on Haunted Hill and who actually feel as if you want to rent or buy it just for fun on a lonely evening (the disc is priced very cheaply most everywhere, as I said, not even going beyond 10 bucks, and I believe this title is worth it). Just to say----the effects used at the end ruin, as I mentioned, what was a creepy (but a bit confusing at points) re-telling of Castle's story with a fabulous performance by Geoffrey Rush (but a ridiculous, useless "bad boy from the ghetto ex-baseball-player" performance from Taye Diggs---a HORRIBLE choice in casting) in addition to a brilliant use of parallel character development on Malone's behalf -- such as using Chris Kattan as the "caretaker" of this place sharing the exact same name as the character from the original, both of whom know the secrets behind these haunted "houses."

And it's the interior sets of Malone's remake that make this film so effective --- as the characters are walking around with flashlights in the basement of the old Vanacutt asylum, the atmosphere that Malone creates is downright chilling, as we see remnants of the old equipment that was used to torture the patients in the asylum, the machinery and rooms such as electroshock therapy, flashbacks to Vanacutt and his torture chambers in this place----it all makes for a rather disturbing tension and atmosphere which carries this film's running pace until the end, where the special effects team takes over and ruins it, in my opinion.

There is also another fascinating parallel between Castle's original and Malone's remake whereby the guests of this party are given handguns in little "coffins" (just like in Castle's version) to defend themselves with, as Rush attempts to suggest that they are going to come in contact with "things that go bump in the night" in order to survive the night in this place----but does he REALLY believe that, or is he cooking up a story for these guests? It's something that always leaves us wondering, as was Malone's intention. But I must say....it gets downright frustrating to try and figure out after awhile!

What is exactly going on here? Did the asylum itself invite these guests for the party? Did Rush want to kill his wife and vice versa? Is Rush really seeing the ghost of Richard Vanacutt as he peers into camera monitors set up by his eventually faceless assistant technician? Was the "Melissa Marr" character dragged "into the walls of the asylum" after doing some videotaping of the place as the film's characters suggest? As Rush himself says "I'm sure the unexplainable will explain herself before long....." and I will leave you folks who haven't seen this yet (or who possibly have) to answer those --- and the many others you will have --- questions for yourselves. Better than Jan De Bont's The Haunting in terms of an effective remake? Yes, I think so.....although it's a tossup as to how much money Malone and De Bont poured into the special effects for each of these remakes in order to out-do one another; the story and acting in The Haunting get downright atrocious at times ---- even from Liam Neeson --- but there is no denying DreamWorks created a demo quality DTS ES DVD presentation for that title that's worth watching the film alone for).

What Warner Brothers has given us with their bargain-basement-priced DVD release of 1999's House on Haunted Hill is not bargain basement in terms of audio, video and especially extra material. Housed in one of their terrible "snapper case" packages, this once disc release was pretty impressive for the price it gets. The only other complaint I have about the packaging is the cover artwork----couldn't Warner Brothers have come up with a better art scheme than a red palm print and the faces of the characters on front (with TAYE DIGGS IN THE LARGEST PICTURE of them all, who had the WORST performance in the film) with the words "Evil Loves to Party"?

VIDEO SPECIFICATIONS:
"DUAL LAYER WIDESCREEN VERSION PRESENTED IN A "MATTED" WIDESCREEN FORMAT PRESERVING THE ASPECT RATIO OF ITS ORIGINAL THEATRICAL EXHIBITION, ENHANCED FOR WIDESCREEN TVs"

In Warner Brothers' speak, that means this was either a 1:78 or 1:85:1 ratio transfer, as there was no letterboxing on my screen and as the word "matted" hinted at; this was, from what I could tell, a middle-of-the-road transfer from the WB, which for the most part from beginning to end remains rich, smooth and clean but appears, at times, "smoky" in certain shots, probably an intentional effect by Malone and team. This won't be a disc you'll pull off your shelf to show off your video system, but you can't really go into this expecting that. The colors don't leap off the screen here, but the overall look of the print is clean and dirt free, and dare I say I did not detect any grain during the viewing of this? In the end, a transfer I simply cannot complain about.

AUDIO SPECIFICATIONS:
ENGLISH DOLBY DIGITAL 5.1, SUBTITLES IN ENGLISH & FRENCH

Another middle-of-the-road Dolby Digital 5.1 track for a Warner Brothers title, but the mix gets the job done here----no doubt. There is only one problem, and this has been confirmed for me by other staff members who review for other sites and publications, that it does seem as if the dialogue on this Dolby track has been mixed CONSIDERABLY lower than the remainder of the soundtrack --- perhaps not as bad as Warner's Executive Decision --- but the lack of center channel dialogue presence and "power" is definitely apparent and evident. There is good use of the LFE channel, as the metal plates of the Vanacutt Asylum begin slamming down are accompanied by nice thuds of bass; there are other usages of the subwoofer channel throughout the presentation as well. Surrounds are used effectively here----demonic moaning, cries of tortured patients, the thudding of insane crazies on the roof of the asylum---are all rendered perfectly in the surround channels----not drawing too much attention to them, but definitely drawing you into this film. Most effective, believe it or not, were the quieter moments, when characters are walking around the basement of the asylum, through creepy empty corridors, and the sounds of dripping water pipes are gently making their way into the rear channels --- a great sense of environment is created here. Also worth listening for are the whispers of the tortured souls caught and trapped in Vanacutt's asylum, which make their way right into your surrounds and add to the strange environment Malone's film creates. All around, an effective Dolby 5.1 mix, which at first would have ordinarily had me screaming "DTS! DTS!" but what we have here gets the job done once you bring your system up high enough; very effective surround mix for a haunted "asylum" tale.

Also worth noting is the fashion in which Marilyn Manson's remake of "Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This" is rendered on this 5.1 mix as the cars are bringing the guests to the "party"; there is a three-dimensionality to the song during this part of the soundtrack that was utilized brilliantly by the engineers; the song almost seems to be coming from the depths of your speakers, and hard to "locate" if you can understand what I mean----an effective use of music on a surround track indeed.

The extras, as I had mentioned, make this disc shine even more; the documentary comparing Castle's version of the film and Malone's is pretty fascinating to watch, quite frankly, and more than makes up for the stripped down Alpha Video release of the original (although I was not expecting more from that). Also included were:

-Enhanced Features for DVD ROM PC
-Web Events and Chat Room Access
-Genre Essays
-Original Theatrical Website
-Sampler Trailers
-Behind the Scenes Documentaries
-Director Commentary
-Deleted Scenes
-Interactive Menus (very effective, along the lines of DreamWorks' The Haunting DVD menu)
-Filmographies
-Theatrical Trailers
-Scene Access (of course)