If you were a horror fan in the summer of 1999, you had two major haunted house movies to look forward to: Jan de Bont’s The Haunting, which arrived in July, or William Malone’s House on Haunted Hill, which landed in theaters just in time for Halloween. These similarly-named themes duked it out for that year’s “Best Spooky House Movie” title, and … well, to this day each has its defenders.
This writer happens to be a House on Haunted Hill dude, and as such I am feeling somewhat jealous of all the Haunting fans out there when I relay the following: thanks to the good folks at Scream Factory, de Bont’s film will be released in 4K this May. The news comes to us from Bloody Disgusting, who point out that you can pre-order your 4K edition of The Haunting as we speak, and that doing so will also score you an “EXCLUSIVE 18×24″ ROLLED POSTER.” Neat!
For any of our younger readers who may be unfamiliar with The Haunting: de Bont’s film was a big-budget ($80M in 1999 dollars) adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, one that took maybe a few liberties with the source material along the way. It had an all-star cast, including Liam Neeson, Owen Wilson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Lili Taylor, and was quite a hit, racking up over $180M at the worldwide box office.
It’s not a film you see mentioned much anymore, but it’s certainly got its fans, and today I raise a glass to their good news (but, Scream Factory, seriously, let’s get a House on Haunted Hill 4K going pronto, please). Stay tuned for more on Scream Factory’s release schedule as further updates become available.
