What is this, after all? A remake in color of a schlock 45-year-old Vincent Price horror movie (not very good to begin with) featuring a cavalcade of special effects.<br /><br />A rich amusement park owner (Geoffrey Rush) and his cynical -- and very tall -- wife (Famke Jannsen) invite half a dozen friends to spend the night in a deserted mansion. The survivors will get a millions bucks apiece. It's particularly spooky because the building is an ex psychiatric hospital in which the owner years ago went mad and slaughtered staff and patients alike. "He out-Mansoned Manson," Peter Graves gravely intones on television.<br /><br />At first it all seems like a kind of practical joke perpetrated by Rush, who is given to scary stunts. But then the house evidently locks itself up and nobody can get out or communicate with the outside, not even Rush. Most of the lights go out and the guests are stuck with the task of poking around with flashlights in the crumbling rooms filled with electronic torture devices.<br /><br />It all gets pretty routine. One of the guests is a black guy and I figured him for an early victim. It's that kind of movie. There is a vat of what looks like boiling blood and someone gets pulled into it. There is a fake death. Falling skylights. Two pistols are produced, one supposedly loaded with blanks. And all kinds of mysterious goings on, go on. And -- and -- zzzzzzz.<br /><br />I can see where someone might enjoy this. It's all formulaic, and it's a remake to begin with. But it's creepy, scary, and bloody enough to satisfy the kinds of desires generated in a mind whose cinematic faculty is as empty as a ping pong ball.<br /><br />Want some spooky movies that embody some originality? If you haven't seen any of Val Lewton's tiny masterpieces -- "The Cat People" or "I Walked With a Zombie" -- or, say, "The Haunting" or "Carnival of Souls," try them instead.