It’s clear from the outset that the husband and wife duo have nothing but icy venom between them, and it escalates from traded barbs to flat out murder plots as the narrative progresses. While the restless spirits are waging war on the human guests, there’s a smaller scaled but equally vicious war taking place between Steven and his wife Evelyn ( Famke Janssen). Watching Rush take Price from a controlled puppeteer to scared puppet is fascinating. The tables are turned and he’s the one experiencing fear for once. When things start to go awry, he’s perplexed. Price is a character used to exerting control, to being the one pulling all of the strings behind the scenes. That persona is also interesting on a character level, too. That showman persona is important to the plot because he’s the essential catalyst for getting the group of people to the Vannacutt Psychiatric Institute in the first place. One that derives clear pleasure from scaring the piss out of people. It was part of the show, and Price is the showman. Just when the elevator is about to crash into the ground and death seems imminent, the gimmick reveals itself. With swagger, he brushes off their safety concerns but then clutches to the elevator wall screaming when it appears to break down and drop suddenly. He answers with a wry smirk, “Neither my wife.” He answers more questions about the new ride before ushering the journalist and her cameraman into an elevator that appears to head straight up to the adjacent roller coaster. After hanging up, the journalist asks if it was business or pleasure.
In the middle of a press interview for the opening of his latest gimmick-filled theme park ride, he takes a phone call. In his first scene, Steven Price is introduced as a fast-paced businessman with a sardonic wit. The other, bigger half is his scene-stealing portrayal. But the look is only a small half of Rush’s masterful approach to the character. Malone agreed Rush could try out the look, but when Rush transformed himself to look like Waters, he instead wound up looking somewhere closer to Vincent Price. Rush wasn’t into the bland description and approached Malone with a concept more befitting of an eccentric amusement park mogul what if Steven Price looked like director John Waters? The irony, though, is that Steven Price wasn’t initially meant to look like Vincent Price the script originally just described him as an average businessman.
This was the precise same role Vincent Price played in the 1959 original film, and the character was renamed in reference.
Rush played amusement park mogul Steven Price, the rich host to his wife’s birthday party that offers up $1,000,000 to anyone who can endure a night-long stay in the haunted hospital. One that deserves a space in horror’s hall of fame. At the center of it all, though, was a very inspired performance by Geoffrey Rush. This time the ghosts were very real and very vengeful. Penned by Dick Beebe from Robb White’s original 1959 story and directed by William Malone, the 1999 remake relocated to a foreboding psychiatric hospital for its haunted setting. Twenty years ago, on October 27, 1999, Dark Castle Entertainment launched with a remake of William Castle’s House on Haunted Hill.