Rush plays the Frederick Loren character, here named Steven Price in a clear nod to the actor from the original. So, really, I thought, what could go wrong? Even James Marsters (Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) turns up for a scene as a cameraman. The main cast is made up of a bunch of people I’ve enjoyed in other things, including Geoffrey Rush (the Pirates of the Caribbean films), Famke Janssen (the X-Men films), Taye Diggs ( Rent), Ali Larter ( Final Destination, Heroes, Obsession), Peter Gallagher ( The OC), and Chris Kattan ( SNL).

I actually really liked the next twenty minutes or so of the film. So, thank you, House on Haunted Hill (1959), for this piece of Internet artwork. gif that’s been a favorite of mine for years, even though I had no idea what it came from. Plus, the end of the film provides us with this classic. (If you believe Watson Pritchard’s final fourth-wall demolition, we’re next to die!) The whole thing is delightfully screwball, and I watched the entire last twenty minutes with a huge grin on my face. You can never tell until the very end who’s dead, who’s just pretending, who’s a ghost, and who’s next to die. The end of House on Haunted Hill finds numerous people having been murdered and come back to life, just in time to then murder the next person down the line. A quick Google search didn’t turn up too much definitive about House on Haunted Hill having an influence on Clue, but the latter has to be paying homage, on some level, to the former. In both films, guests are brought together by a mysterious host in a remote mansion for a party, someone dies, and the guests spend the majority of the film running from room to room trying to figure out who the killer is while accusing each other of murder. House on Haunted Hill reminded me of nothing so much as Clue, one of my favorite cult classic campy comedies.

Geoffrey rush house on haunted hill