Vincent Price was the man.

Nora becomes a bit too over dramatic by film's end though I guess that is intentional. Vincent Price was indeed the man, loved every minute he was in this. Just a crazy little horror film in the end.

Don't think there's a thread for the 1999 remake. I romanticized the remake so much in my mind, because I remember it being genuinely scary. It was also my first horror movie I watched on my own (I watched Halloween: H20 and the horror version of Jack Frost with friends). So it holds a bit of a special place for me.

Almost twenty years later, Scream Factory released a Blu-ray collector's edition, which I eagerly bought. I should point out I revisited this about ten years ago, to the same scary reaction. But now, in 2018, I realize just how awful this is. It's got the glossy sheen that most horror films of the late 90s/early 2000s had. It's incredibly loud, not even allowing the jump scares to terrify you, instead relying on deafening you amidst the scares.

And of course the scares are severely lacking. What frightened me 20 years ago makes me groan now. Scary faces shaking violently? Okay. Perhaps the scariest part of this movie is Geoffrey Rush in some sort of awful homage to Vincent Price, right down to the pencil-thin mustache. The supporting cast boasts a veritable who's who of 1990s almost-stars: Ali Larter, Chris Kattan, Taye Diggs, Peter Gallagher, Famke Janssen.

That all said, there is still something likable about the whole thing. Some of the scares could be scary if they were given time to breathe. But they assault the screen, resulting in complete de-sensitization of the ensuing frights. And the set looks great. If the lighting had more mood to it, it might work on atmosphere alone. Alas, none of this is what the finished product looks like. This was rightfully chewed up and spit out as a lacking remake in 1999, caught somewhere in the middle of a horror movie dead zone when these movies, more or less, sucked.