It's unfortunate that there are good qualities of this movie, not the least of which is Geoffrey Rush's fantastic performance and lunatic character, because they're wasted in a truly wretched finished whole.
Horror works when it plays off our fear of the unknown.
We fear that which is unknown, because there is no limit to the potential of how terrible the unknown may turn out to be. House On Haunted Hill makes a subtle miscalculation and tries to scare us not by the unknown but by the unknowable. There are no rules to the horror in House On Haunted Hill . Unnatural things happen, and clearly we are supposed to be frightened by them, but the truth of the matter is there is no apparent rhyme or reason to the motives or abilities of the evil forces at work. Likewise, there is no apparent rhyme or reason to the motives or abilities of the human characters, either.