Geoffrey Rush was never meant to look like Vincent Price (star of the original film Das Haus auf dem Geisterhügel (1959)). The original screenplay described Stephen Price as a regular looking businessman. Rush didn't care for this, so he suggested that his character look like the film director John Waters. The director agreed to test this look out. After his transformation, he ended up looking so much like Vincent Price the director decided to keep the look.
(at around 18 mins) Famke Janssen performed her own stunt when the glass ceiling breaks. It was extremely important for Janssen to remain where she was and very still, yet even with her basically glued to the spot, the shard hit with so much impact that it bounced her head off the table as you can see on close inspection of the scene.
The rollercoaster in the beginning of the movie is The Incredible Hulk at Universal's Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida.
William Malone got the idea to set the movie in a former insane asylum when he was filming an episode of Geschichten aus der Gruft (1989) in a former asylum and noticed that crew members were running scared out of the basement, not wanting to film there.
This film and 13 Geister (2001) were Dark Castle Entertainment's first films are remakes of horror filmmaker William Castle's films Das Haus auf dem Geisterhügel (1959) and Das unheimliche Erbe (1960). The studio took its name from him.