Editor's Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on October 3, 2007, and we're proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
I should point out right from the start that this review addresses only the standard DVD release of Return to House on Haunted Hill. This version lacks the major selling point of the HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs: “Navigational Cinema,” via which the viewer can make choices at numerous points in the midst of the onscreen action on how it should proceed, leading to alternate scenes stemming from one’s selection. But I should also admit that this gimmick seems to me like anathema to the proper enjoyment of a horror film. Any movie, but especially a fright feature, depends on the viewer sitting down and letting the filmmaker take them on a journey, one in which they aren’t aware of what’s coming next; if it’s a scary flick, not knowing how far both the characters or the audience will be taken, and the inability to “escape” the mounting dread, is part and parcel of the tension-and-terror experience.
Take away this storytelling power and hand it to the audience, says I, and you take away the fear factor. There’s a term for entertainments in which the viewer guides the action: They’re called video games, and if you care to read my thoughts on the inherent differences between the two, they’re in my review of Resident Evil: Extinction.
There’s an irony, then, to the fact that Return to House on Haunted Hill never lets you forget it’s a movie; it’s full of people doing things only people in movies do and saying things only people in movies say. With none of the original stars returning, screenwriter William Massa introduces us to Ariel (Amanda Righetti), sister of previous heroine Sara and a magazine editor who lives in a lavish home I sure wish I could afford. After receiving word that her sis has committed suicide, Ariel and her photographer/wannabe boyfriend Paul (Tom Riley) go to Sara’s apartment, where college professor Dr. Richard Hammer (Steven Pacey) informs them that Sara kept a journal which may reveal the exact location of the priceless “Baphomet idol” in the Vannacutt Mansion. No sooner have Ariel and Paul returned to her home, and Ariel found Sara’s diary in the day’s mail, than they are kidnapped by the ruthless Desmond (Erik Palladino, resembling Jerry Seinfeld’s evil brother) and his thugs. Desmond’s after the idol too, and whisks Ariel and Paul to the Vannacutt place just as Dr. Hammer has arrived with his wisecracking assistant Kyle (Andrew-Lee Potts) and younger hottie lover Michelle (Cerina Vincent).
All this setup and the attendant exposition occurs in about as much onscreen time as it takes to read that paragraph; minus all the aforementioned extra footage, the film is only about 75 minutes long plus credits. The rest proceeds exactly as you expect it will: Everyone splits up into pairs to look for the idol and they start getting bumped off by the mansion’s nasty ghosts, starting, of course, with Desmond’s tough-guy henchmen. (It will surprise no one—or perhaps it might, in this day and age—that the black guy gets it first.) Jeffrey Combs returns as the ghostly Dr. Vannacutt but is sadly given little to do but glower, and the rest of the cast are OK in functional roles that never resonate as real people.
Debuting feature director Victor Garcia does whip up a few strong moments of atmosphere on the mansion sets, which are impressively and eerily well-appointed on a budget no doubt significantly lower than that of the first House, and a couple of gore moments in the unrated DVD have brief icky impact. Unfortunately, Garcia is too enamored of the kind of jittery camerawork and editing that’s more self-conscious than scary, and that too many filmmakers have been indulging in since Se7en (apparently forgetting that it was used primarily in the credits of Se7en to set a mood before the real action took place). The super-wide 2.40:1 transfer and Dolby Digital 5.1 audio are as sharp and spooky as they need to be, and are let down by the predictability of the action they present.
Having shot their supplemental wad on the Navigational Cinema material, the producers leave slim pickings for those seeking extras on the standard DVD. Return to House on Haunted Hill Confessionals has the actors talking in character about their respective situations, and shedding very little new light on their roles or their places in the story—though this segment does showcase plenty of flashes of that jittery camerawork and editing. (“Are you bored?” someone says toward the end, long after that emotion will have set in for anyone watching.) The Search for an Idol gives Pacey-as-Dr.-Hammer three minutes to provide a bit of backstory on Baphomet, and there are also two extended and two deleted scenes, all thoroughly inconsequential. Finally, a music video for Mushroomhead’s end-title song “Simple Survival” is included; the tune’s not bad, and the clip is packed full of—surprise!—jittery camerawork and editing.
So…nothing from the filmmakers or the cast on the making of Return to House on Haunted Hill, and nothing on the Navigational Cinema process either, to perhaps encourage buyers of this disc to pick up one of the others. Clearly, all the attention went into creating those branching alternate sequences themselves, and the feature proper is left feeling like an empty afterthought. If this gimmick is here to stay, one can only hope that those who create the next movie to employ it don’t put the cart so far before the horse.
