History Film / HouseOnHauntedHill1999

Fast forward to the present, where amusement park mogul Stephen [[MythologyGag Price]] (Rush) is leasing this facility for the Halloween party of his spoiled trophy wife Evelyn (Jannsen). The five invitees are given a similar challenge as in the original movie, only the pot has been upped to $1,000,000 for any survivors, plus the winnings of any who do not survive having their earnings added to those of any remaining survivors. Soon after the party begins, the security gates are tripped, and the partygoers are trapped inside the facility with the insane spirits haunting the facility - including not only all the inmates, but also Vannacutt himself.

* AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther: Downplayed with Steven and Evelyn Price. In spite of both of their repeated attempts to humiliate and kill the other, there are moments that hint their may have once been real love in the marriage. Steven seems genuinely distraught when [[spoiler: he believes Evelyn has been murdered. Not only that [[spoiler: Evelyn fearfully calls out for Steven and Steven urges Evelyn to get up and come to him right before she is consumed by the [[EldritchAbomination evil spirit of the house.]]]]

* AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther: Downplayed with Steven and Evelyn Price. In spite of both of their repeated attempts to humiliate and kill the other, there are moments that hint their may have once been real love in the marriage. Steven seems genuinely distraught when [[spoiler: he believes Evelyn has been murdered.]] Not only that [[spoiler: Evelyn fearfully calls out for Steven right before she is consumed by the [[EldritchAbomination evil spirit of the house.]]

* OutGambited: [[spoiler: Evelyn's plot to get Steven murdered with Blackburn's help. She's even convinced she got away with it until Steven reveals he knew the plan the entire time, played along and faked his death in order to get the opportunity to kill Evelyn himself.]]

* ObfuscatingStupidity: [[spoiler: Steven's knowledge of the plot to murder him by Evelyn and Dr. Blackburn. He seems to be victimized and when Sara guns him down, it seems she got away with it and gloats in front of his apparent corpse. Then he reveals he faked his death, and thanks to bugs and hidden cameras, he's recorded everything Evelyn and Dr. Blackburn said, and simply played along with Evelyn's plot to get the chance to murder Evelyn himself.]]

* DeadpanSnarker: Everyone gets in on the act, but Steven, Evelyn, and Pritchett are the MVPs. Steven and Evelyn's verbal sparring in the bedroom after her arrival is almost a WorldOfSnark.

* SuddenlyShouting: Pritchett does this to Price, since he's scared of the place, wants to leave immediately, and Price keeps holding up his rental payment to use the building to talk to the other guests. He finally politely interrupts Price before shouting, "GodDAMN IT! You gimme my GODDAMN check right now!"

* ConnectedAllAlong: [[spoiler: Steven's proposed guest list for Evelyn's party is updated on his computer by an otherworldly presence to include Jennifer Jenzen, Eddie Baker, and Melissa Marr. When Eddie finds a portrait with the names of all of Vannacutt's staff on the wall of Vannacutt's office, Sara figures out that everyone invited (save for Blackburn) is a descendant of five of the staff of Vannacutt's hospital that managed to escape being burned in the fire, and that the spirits specifically invited them out of unfinished business. Even Steven and Evelyn Price are decendants from the former staff. In the end, it gets everyone but Jennifer, since Sara stole her invitation and came in her place, and Eddie, who gets pulled out of harm's way after the spirit of Pritchett opens the exit a final time. In Eddie's defense, he states he was adopted, but it seemed the darkness didn't care, and would have taken him anyway if not for Pritchett's intervention.]]

* TheGhost: Thanks to [[spoiler: Creator/DebiMazar's scenes being deleted, we're never introduced to Jennifer Jenzen proper in the film, and only know through Sara's dialogue that she's an overbearing bitch that fired Sara, and that Sara is actually impersonating her and stole her party invitation due to the million in cash being offered to stay the night.]]

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: [[spoiler: Evelyn makes it appear Steven murdered her (she's revived by her accomplice, Dr. Blackburn) then murders Blackburn and frames Steven for it, in order to get him shot by one of the gaslighted attendees. The plan works, unfortunately Steven had everything bugged and knew the whole plan in advance, allowing him to fake ''his'' death as well. When he confronts her, he gleefully tells her he's going to murder ''her'' since she's already set up that she's dead. While he doesn't get the chance to go through with it, (the darkness gets her first) her entire plan backfired and if the darkness hadn't killed her, Steven was angry enough, and justified enough, to do it himself.]]

* VillainousBreakdown: [[spoiler: Evelyn undergoes this when Steven reveals he faked his death, knew about her plan with Blackburn to get him killed, and is completely at Steven's wrath and mercy. While the reveal of the Darkness in the house takes all the fight out of Steven, ''it'' kills her instead.

* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefullness: [[spoiler: After Dr. Blackburn revives Evelyn, she kills him, decapitates him, and places his corpse in the saturation chamber to frame Steven for the crime.]]

* TooDumbToLive: [[spoiler:Sara when confronted with the ghosts just stands there and has to be pulled or pushed away several times.]] Then again, it likely has less to do with her being TooDumbToLive than her being ''frozen in fear from seeing an actual EldritchAbomination''. Also subverted, as she survives.]]

* TooDumbToLive: [[spoiler:Sara when confronted with the ghosts just stands there and has to be pulled or pushed away several times.]] Then again, it likely has less to do with her being TooDumbToLive than her being ''frozen in fear from seeing an actual EldritchAbomination''.
* TookALevelInBadass: Sara Wolfe is far more collected and hands-on than her screaming counterpart Nora Manning from the 1959 film. While Eddie Baker's demeanor is similar to his 1959 counterpart, Lance Schroeder, he edges out Lance as [[spoiler: Eddie has to actively avoid, and escape from, ''actual ghosts.''

** And as listed under MeaningfulName, Steven's surname is a reference to Creator/VincentPrice, who essentially played the Steven role in the original film.

* RedemptionEqualsDeath: [[spoiler: Steven is a bit of a JerkAss throughout the film (in his defense, his wife and Dr. Blackburn were trying to get him killed) but after the darkness is released, he actively tries to get himself, Sara, and Eddie to safety. Steven is the one that figures out the escape route in the attic, but instead of just rushing right out, he waits around for Sara and Eddie, and sacrifices himself by shoving Sara out of the way of the darkness and letting it consume him instead.

**

* DarkerAndEdgier: [[spoiler: While it follows the same basic structure as the 1959 film: isolated location, millionaire and wife who despise each other; murder plot between the wife and one of the party guests who's a doctor to frame husband for her murder and to gaslight one of the other guests into killing her husband; and the party guests being offered a large sum of cash to be locked in and stay the night; ''that'' film ends never fully answering the question as to whether the house was actually haunted, and only the evil wife and the doctor end up dead before the credits. The remake dials things up to 11. The house is a former mental hospital overseen by a mad doctor who experimented on his patients, and who died along with the majority of those patients and staff after he locked down the hospital before the slaughtered him and a fire broke out. The guests, minus the doctor that is in on the plot with the fire, are all descendants of five of the mad doctor's staff that escaped the fire, and were specifically invited by the spiritual presence in the house. The wife and husband have much more animosity towards each other, the wife actually is killed and revived, and the wife murders her partner to frame her husband. The lock down was planned in the original film. Here, the lock down takes place of its own accord. The biggest difference is that the former asylum ''is'' haunted, and we see multiple ghosts, including the mad doctor, as well as a darkness made up of the combined spirits of everyone who died that gets released and ends up killing three people. By the time the credits roll, six people have been killed, five by ghosts/the Darkness, and there are only two survivors.]]

* DarkerAndEdgier: [[spoiler: While it follows the same basic structure as the 1959 film: isolated location, millionaire and wife who despise each other, murder plot between wife and one of the party guests who's a doctor to frame husband for her murder to gaslight one of the other guests into killing her husband, and the party guests being offered a large sum of cash to be locked in and stay the night, that film ends never fully answering the question as to whether the house was actually haunted, and only the evil wife and the doctor end up dead before the credits. The remake dials things up to 11. The house is a former mental hospital overseen by a mad doctor who experimented on his patients, and who died along with the majority of those patients and staff after he locked down the hospital before the slaughtered him and a fire broke out. The guests, minus the doctor that is in on the plot with the fire, are all descendants of five of the mad doctor's staff that escaped the fire, and were specifically invited by the spiritual presence in the house. The wife and husband have much more animosity towards each other, the wife actually is killed and revived, and the wife murders her partner to frame her husband. The lock down was planned in the original film. Here, the lock down takes place of its own accord. The biggest difference is that the former asylum ''is'' haunted, and we see multiple ghosts, including the mad doctor, as well as a darkness made up of the combined spirits of everyone who died that gets released and ends up killing three people. By the time the credits roll, six people have been killed, five by ghosts/the Darkness, and there are only two survivors.]]

* DarkerAndEdgier: [[spoiler: While it follows the same basic structure as the 1959 film: isolated location, millionaire and wife who despise each other, murder plot between wife and one of the party guests who's doctor to frame husband for her murder to gaslight one of the other guests into killing her husband, and the party guests being offered a large sum of cash to be locked in and stay the night, that film ends never fully answering the question as to whether the house was actually haunted, and only the evil wife and the doctor end up dead before the credits. The remake dials things up to 11. The house is a former mental hospital overseen by a mad doctor who experimented on his patients, and who died along with the majority of those patients and staff after he locked down the hospital before the slaughtered him and a fire broke out. The guests, minus the doctor that is in on the plot with the fire, are all descendants of five of the mad doctor's staff that escaped the fire, and were specifically invited by the spiritual presence in the house. The wife and husband have much more animosity towards each other, the wife actually is killed and revived, and the wife murders her partner to frame her husband. The lock down was planned in the original film. Here, the lock down takes place of its own accord. The biggest difference is that the former asylum ''is'' haunted, and we see multiple ghosts, including the mad doctor, as well as a darkness made up of the combined spirits of everyone who died that gets released and ends up killing three people. By the time the credits roll, six people have been killed, five by ghosts/the Darkness, and there are only two survivors.]]