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Dom Robinson reviews 
- Cert:
- Cat.no: 490 965 2
- Running time: 108 minutes
- Year: 1999
- Pressing: 2000
- Region(s): 2, 4 (UK PAL)
- Chapters: 24
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English, German
- Subtitles: 6 languages available
- Widescreen: 2.35:1
- 16:9-enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £17.99
- Extras: Trailers, Featurette, Booklet
Director:
- Jan de Bont
(The Haunting, Speed 1 & 2, Twister)
Producers:
- Susan Arnold, Donna Arkoff Roth and Colin Wilson
Screenplay:
- David Self
Original Score :
- Jerry Goldsmith
Cast :
- Dr. David Marrow: Liam Neeson
Theo: Catherine Zeta Jones
Luke Sanderson: Owen Wilson
Nell: Lili Taylor
Mr. Dudley: Bruce Dern
Mrs. Dudley: Marian Seldes
Jane: Virginia Madsen
“You don’t tell the rats they’re actually in a maze”, is Dr. David Marrow’s (Liam Neeson) excuse for testing for reactions to fear by advertising his research as an “insomnia study” at the big, 130-year-old haunted place, known as Hill House. All the participants will receive $900 per week, so sign me up!
This is Jan de Bont‘s remake of the 1963 original which starred Julia Harris, Richard Johnson, Claire Bloom and Russ Tamblyn, a film which bored me so much I had to stop watching halfway through, even though TNT were screening it in its original 2.35:1 ratio. After enjoying the director’s other action fests, Speed, Speed 2: Cruise Control and Twister, I had high hopes for this version to provide the necessary entertainment.
Taking up the offer is artist Theo (the new Mrs. Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta Jones), Armageddon‘s Owen Wilson as Luke and Nell (Lili Taylor), who just recently lost her mother after spending a lifetime looking after her. The film is stretched out with a lot of introduction to the back-story of the house and how it came to be, then slowly, but surely, do weird things begin to happen, initially to Nell and the trio discover what Dr. Marrow is really up to that’s just half the story.
The film also includes cameos from Bruce Dern as caretaker Mr. Dudley and Virginia Madsen as Nell’s inconsiderate sister Jane.
Like all other Jan de Bont films, this one is also presented in 2.35:1 and is anamorphic. He uses the entire width of the frame all the time, so I’d hate to see how the glorious interiors and superb, subtle – and not so subtle – SFX result in being cropped to 4:3 fullscreen. The average bitrate is a high 6.24Mb/s, often peaking over 8Mb/s.
The sound is in Dolby Digital 5.1 for both English and German and is well-used throughout the film, initially to provide creepy voices of children in Nell’s mind and even more so later on when more spooky effects take place, which thunder through your speakers and will be heard in the next town if played loud enough.
Extras : Two Trailers, both anamorphic, one in 2.35:1 and the other cropped to 16:9, a 27-minute Featurette introduced by Catherine Zeta Jones and including interviews from cast and crew members mixed in with clips. Finally, the enclosed booklet contains a couple of pages of brief production notes.
The number of chapters, 24, is fine and the subtitles come in English (and hard of hearing), Dutch, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish.
The menus are all silent and static.
Overall, this passes a fairly interesting couple of hours, but while it’s not something I’d care to watch time and again, it’s a damn good demo disc for Dolby Digital 5.1 sound.
However, as Lily Tomlin gets far more to do than any of the rest of the cast, she shouldn’t have been as low down as fourth in the list.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL 
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.