To me, this movie is perfection.

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

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.

Now, I know one should never expect much from a sequel unless it's The Dark Knight or Purge: Anarchy, but this comes so close and stills falls short. The original had much better acting with people who knew how to control their tone of voice when necessary; I literally watched the House on Haunted Hill 3 times in a row. That's where most sequels go wrong, inferior acting due to lower budget or just plain bad casting. spoiler alert: Every time something happens that would make anyone sane or normal scream their head off, the actor is either speechless or starts bitching about how "ghosts don't exist"; even though he is standing in a pool of blood. That is where the writing went wrong. The Dialogue was poorly thrown together with little regard for continuity of the first film's events, and the reactions assigned to the characters in each murder scene are just under par and not plausible. If that wasn't enough, the entire idea presented in the first movie involving simple evil trapping souls is reduced to an Indiana Jones treasure hunt with a big breasted heroine seeming to possess the speed, strength and guts of a marine. I mean hey, if she actually was a marine OK, but suddenly giving a magazine editor a bad ass arsenal of skills doesn't do for me, and no it's not because she's a girl. But seriously, the bone crunching that should have been present is non-existent, with each bloody seen sounding more like jello being ripped and tossed rather than a human body. Despite all this, there are some good features. The past memories was an interesting turn, although a seeming migraine feature may have been needed to sell it. And the deaths were in fact very creative. All in all, this is a straight to netflix and DVD movie. If your looking for a haunted house block buster feature, try A Haunting in Connecticut, but if you just want a mildly creepy film with fun death scenes and an ancient demon god, look no further!

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.

I actually didn't dislike this movie's prequel, House on Haunted Hill - I gave it a 7. Its good-sized budget and well-known cast probably swayed my decision some.This sequel appears to have a better budget than most direct-to-video releases, though of course it comes nowhere close to its predecessor. Same with its cast. The story, actually, seems to have more in common with Thir13en Ghosts, since each of the gang trapped in the haunted house meet different kinds of ghosts with distinct personalities, which was fairly entertaining. I think the problem with the movie is that it blew its limited budget on special effects and makeup but to ho-hum effect. The ghosties and set look decent but the scares weren't there and the story and cast weren't up to scratch.