Dark Castle Entertainment has had an uneasy relationship with horror fans since its debut in 1999. The idea of the company initially seemed like a fanboy’s dream: the producers of “Tales from the Crypt” would be releasing a horror flick roughly once a year, backed by a major studio, with decent casts, tons of gore and mayhem, all in the lively, twisted spirit of the old William Castle flicks from the 50s. But things have not gone as planned (or hoped, more accurately), as most of the productions have been either just okay (HOUSE OF WAX, HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL), bad (GOTHIKA, GHOST SHIP), or downright awful (THIRTEEN GHOSTS). I have not seen THE REAPING yet, but I’m hearing it falls into one of the latter categories.
One of the okay ones, HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL is the first to get a sequel, which will be released on DVD in September. With production wrapped, producer Joel Silver had a few things to say about its origins as a direct-to-DVD movie to Comingsoon.net: “This is a good place to make a sequel for these. We have to look at these different distribution systems to utilize the material in different ways. Having a direct-to-video sequel in this case is a good idea and if this one works, then maybe I’ll make sequels to a lot of the [Dark Castle] films for direct-to-video.”
Say what you will about these pictures’ content, the production values have been uniformly splendid, and it’s going to be tough to replicate the fantastic sets on a much smaller budget. But I guess GHOST SHIP 2 can take place on a tugboat, and instead of the eerie glass house from the first one, FOURTEEN GHOSTS, can take place in a plexiglass mansion.
RETURN TO HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL, directed by Vincent Garcia (who did some special effects work on DAGON and HELLBOY), stars Cerina Vincent, Erik Palladino, Amanda Righetti, and most importantly, Jeffrey Combs, who returns in the role of crazed doctor-turned-malevolent ghost Richard Vannacutt.
And if you need any other reasons to see this flick, I’ll give ya two.
Amanda Righetti
Cerina Vincent