House on Haunted Hill (1999)

REVIEW
This remake of Vincent Price's 1958 fun ghost story is lots of fun as well. Never taking itself too seriously (like the terrible remake of The Haunting), this updated ghost tale immediately pays homage to the original by naming its lead character Price. He's played by Rush, an amusement park magnate whose trophy wife (Jannsen) convinces him to throw her birthday party at a supposedly haunted, now-abandoned insane asylum. Guests arrive (who neither of them know), and all are offered a million dollars if they can live the night. Then things get spooky. It's all red herrings, shadowy figures and what's-around-the-corner boos, the kind of scares we've certainly seen before. But it's done with a certain tongue-in-cheekiness and with a sense of fun that much of it is hard to resist -- on a isn't-it-cheesy, seen-it-before level.