Return to House on Haunted Hill (2007)

Film Title: Return to House on Haunted Hill

Released: October 16, 2007

Directed by: Víctor García

Written by: William Massa based on characters created by Robb White

Starring: Amanda Righetti, Cerina Vincent, Erik Palladino, Tom Riley, Steven Pacey & Jeffrey Combs

Plot: The sister of a survivor from House on Haunted Hill is dragged to the eponymous house by a ruthless smuggler searching for a priceless artifact.

IMDb: 4.6/10

Rotten Tomatoes: 20/100

My Score: 2/5

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Direct-to-DVD sequel to William Malone's 1999 House on Haunted Hill, itself an expanded remake of William Castle's 1959 film of the same name, Return to House on Haunted Hill changes things up a bit from both with varying results. Amanda Righetti, a workaholic magazine editor, is the sister of Ali Larter (who does not appear in this film), who was one of only two survivor's of Malone's film. When she ends up dead of an apparent suicide, a grieving Righetti tries to find out why with the help her friend/love interest, photographer Tom Riley. While investigating, they encounter Steven Pacey, a professor searching for the Baphomet Idol, a priceless artifact connected to Jeffery Combs, a mad scientist who ran the insane asylum in the eponymous house in the 1920's, committing unspeakable acts upon the helpless inmates during his tenure. Righetti and Riley are kidnapped by Erik Palladino, a violent art dealer and former student of Pacey, who reveals that he killed Larter when she would not help him locate the idol in the asylum. Cerina Vincent lures Pacey to the asylum with her feminine wiles but is really Palladino's lover and co-conspirator. They all meet in the house but the tormented spirits start killing them off one by one. The acting isn't horrible, the effects decent but the story is really where it falls apart for me. The addition of the idol as the source of all evil in the house is pretty lame, in my opinion. Why Combs can't be evil because some people are just evil is beyond me. Human depravity is much scarier and compelling to me than "the evil thing made me do it." One thing I did like was that when the characters are knocked off by the different ghosts, there are little flashback moments of showing how that spirit died and why they're so pissed off, adding back story and history to the mythology of the franchise. The ending, however, is probably the worst part of the whole affair. Unable to destroy the idol with a handgun, Righetti instead throws it down a sewer drain, where it ends up found on a beach by a young couple in the post-credits scene. Really? Co-starring Andrew Lee Potts and Charles Venn, the DVD contains Navigational Cinema technology which allows the viewer to control different aspects of the plot to create up to 90 different versions of the film. Most of the additional 60 minutes of footage add little to the story but do offer more nudity and gore for those so inclined. The movie won a Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing: Direct to Video.