Return to House on Haunted Hill (2007)

That was an excellent one.

Sorry, this movie sucks

Just perfect...

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

A motley assortment of folks go inside a haunted house in search of a precious statue that's worth millions of dollars. Naturally, nefarious supernatural forces in the house start bumping them off left and right. While director Victor Garcia keeps the routine story moving along at a brisk pace, brings a glossy razzle-dazzle style to the hackneyed proceedings, and delivers plenty of in-your-face graphic gore, he alas crucially fails to generate much in the way of essential tension or creepy atmosphere (only a sequence involving sexy lesbian ghosts manages to provoke an eerie and unsettling vibe). Moreover, William Mason's by-the-numbers script follows a grindingly predictable path; it's pretty easy to figure out in advance who's going to either live or die. The often annoying rapid-fire editing and variable CGI effects don't help matters any. The cast do their best with the so-so material: Amanda Righetti as the troubled Ariel Wolfe, Cerina Vincent as backstabbing bitch Michelle, Tom Riley as nice guy Paul, Erik Palladino as greedy jerk Desmond, Steven Pacey as pushy professor Dr. Richard Hammer, Andrew Lee Potts as the sarcastic Kyle, and Gil Kolirin as tough ex-wrestler Norris. Genre favorite Jeffrey Combs does well as the evil and sadistic Dr. Vannacutt. An okay diversion.

i haven't seen the prequel, so my review is without any knowledge about the franchise. its basically just another cliché horror movie. the story is predictable and most of the main cast gets killed of one after one. in my opinion is this movie unnecessary, because its using some overdone material. the acting is, in true cliché horror movie style, not that great. and the plot has its dumb points too. for example, does the main door, that keeps the characters trapped, open for a few minutes, and they didn't notice it, even when standing 10 meters away. but if you want to turn your brain of and just watch a dumb movie, or you want to laugh at a bad movie, i will recommend this one for you.

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.

Horror sequels are generally lazy attempts to cash in on a popular film's name, but "Return to House on Haunted Hill" hits a low that most franchises don't dip to until the fourth or fifth installment.After using a paper-thin premise to get a new lot of victims (complete with Geoffrey Rush and Famke Janssen wannabes) into the murderous house, the film dispenses with all attempts at characterization or suspense-building. Instead, it cuts straight to overacted deaths, lesbian ghosts, Mexican standoffs, and dialogue so bad hitting "mute" improves the film.Unfortunately, the money saved on screenwriters was not spent on special effects. Where the original film had half-seen figures jerkily moving across a screen in ways people don't, this has curvy girls in Halloween face paint that wouldn't have passed muster in 1982, pretending to be turned on and overcaffeinated.Upside: no 'cat scares.' Downside: no other scares, either.The filmmakers have no clue how to build tension by teasing viewers with hints and threats and things unseen, and instead just throw terrible effects on the screen every couple of minutes, or jump around to black-&-white footage of what they think passes for back story.Don't buy it. Don't watch it. For the love of all that is horror, don't encourage these hacks.