Wuchak RELEASED TO VIDEO IN 2007 and directed by Víctor García, "Return to House on Haunted Hill" chronicles events when two factions enter the odd 'house' on the cliffside (actually an asylum) looking for a satanic idol on the very same night (!). One party consists of Ariel (Amanda Righetti) & her beau (Tom Riley) who had been kidnapped by a group of thugs looking for the priceless figurine (e.g. Erik Palladino & Calita Rainford). The other party consists of a college professor (Steven Pacey) and his student assistants (Andrew-Lee Potts & Cerina Vincent). Needless to say, all hell (literally) breaks loose. Jeffrey Combs is on hand as the house's resident mad doctor, Richard B. Vannacutt.This is a stand-alone sequel to the 1999 movie, "House on Haunted Hill," which I don't remember seeing, but I have seen the lame original 1959 film with Vincent Price. In any case, this sequel curiously adds the priceless Baphomet idol as the cause of Dr. Vannacutt's evil. It's an arbitrary plot device to get people back in the house and paves the way for subplots about suicides and gangsters, which are incongruent to the original film's simple premise (daring a group of strangers to stay in the house overnight for a million dollars). But does anyone really care about that in a direct-to-DVD stand-alone sequel? Not me. The question is: Does "Return" deliver as a competent haunted asylum flick? Palladino makes for a capable villain, the story's energetic, the asylum sets & CGI are creepily effective and there's a lot of gore. But I didn't care a wit about anyone who was threatened because the movie never took the time to establish characters for which the viewer might care. This is augmented by the fact that the bulk of the people are awfully unlikable, which destroys sympathy. There was no suspense or genuine scares. In one sequence, for instance, a man is literally drawn & quartered to bloody pieces and I busted out laughing. Also, for me, the film didn't deliver on the female front. Protagonist Righetti is decent, but comes across as a Grade-B Kate Beckinsale. Cerina Vincent is certainly one of the most voluptuously beautiful women to walk the planet, as seen in "It Waits" (2005) and "Sasquatch Mountain" (2006), but here she's painfully anorexic and in dire need of eating at McDonalds for four weeks straight. Calita Rainford is serviceable, but not enough is done with her and she doesn't last long anyway. There are a couple of fine-looking ghosts, however, in a lame wannabe-edgy lesbian sequence.The flick's just too by-the-numbers conventional, as far as modern horror goes, and evidently aimed at adolescent boys. There's no sense of artistry. If you want to see a haunted asylum film that balances conventional horror with kinetic editing & effects with an awesome sense of artistry, see 2005's "Death Tunnel" (and, no, I'm not kidding; see my review for details). THE MOVIE RUNS 79 minutes and was shot in Sofia & Burgas, Bulgaria, and Los Angeles. WRITER: Robb White. GRADE: C- (4.5/10)

jacobjohntaylor1 This movie is so underrated 4.6 just because it is a sequel. People are very bias about sequel. It is true sometimes they do suck. But people are so bias that when a sequel does suck you can not tell because they are always say every sequel suck. Most sequel are better then the original and this movie is no expectation. House on Haunted hill (1959) is very scary. House on haunted hill (1999) is also very scary. But this is scarier. This is one of the scariest movies of all time. This movie has a great story line. It also has great acting. It also has great special effects. Amanda Righetti is a great actress. Cerina Vincent is a also a great actress. All the House on haunted hill movie are most sees.

kai ringler I'm not sure as a whole if this one needed to be made or not,, think maybe they should have titled it differently since it really didn't follow it's predecessor. yeah there is some backstory,, and the Dr. is creepy, I just didn't buy into all of the Knights Templar stuff and the occult stuff going on,, not to say it didn't happen that way,, I just didn't buy into it,, the acting is not the greatest.. but the special effects were a home run,, always nice to have half naked,, women running around in a horror film, the film had some laughs,, lot's of blood guts and gore which was good , this film was slightly above average if you ignore it as a sequel and to try and just what it like pretending its got a different name,, that's how I enjoyed it better.

culmo80 The remake of House on Haunted Hill was enjoyable. It had all the elements of a good horror movie, not to mention pretty good acting, especially by Rush.This sequel to that film was unnecessary and rather absurd.Spoilers below:If you saw the remake (and if you haven't, why would you be reviewing its sequel?), then you know the back-story about the asylum, which was perfect. This film just stretches for a reason to put people back in the house and then proceeds to kill them all off, except for 2...just like the original. They add a few things, like interactive ghosts (a couple of lesbians, a shirtless inmate, etc). The idea behind this was to tell more of the story about the abuses that Dr. Vannicut was guilty of. Not a bad plot element but completely different from what occurred in the first film.We do get to see a little more of the house, but it would have been cool to revisit some of the scenes from the first film (other than the entry room). It might have been creepy to see the blood-soaked medical room where Blackburn met his end, but still, the tour of the rest of the house was interesting.The first film's haunting wasn't concerned with sending a message to the living, the ghosts/entity was only concerned with consuming more souls. Additionally, the house in the first movie was alive and it was evil. In this movie, it wants to be saved from the mysterious source of that evil, which is an ancient demon relic. I felt like this completely ruined it. You want to leave some amount of mystery. I felt that Vannicut's crimes were enough to manifest the evil spirit of the house and there didn't need to be any "evil relic" that once removed would free the spirits. That's a tired trope of the horror genre and it failed in this film. The previous film got it just right.Over all, I wouldn't include this movie in a list of horror films I will never watch again, but it certainly isn't one of my favorites. If you haven't seen this yet, it is worth watching, if only for the cheap thrills; to be sure there is plenty of gore and ghosts, but don't expect anything that will blow you away.