Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Good horror film...Score: 80 (out of 100)
I am inclined to say that PSYCHO (1960), THE INNOCENTS (1961), AND REPULSION (1965) are some of the best horror films of the sixties. Robert Wise's THE HAUNTING ranks up there too. Its a simple film about a haunted house. What makes this film with no special effects, gore, or blood so scary??? It makes use of a technique similar to Steven Spielberg's JAWS (1975) - no monster is ever seen or revealed until the end of the movie. The only trick here is that the monster of Hill House is NEVER seen. The ultimate underlying message is: things unseen are more scarier than those which are not.This film takes on the use of the psychological. Are the ghosts of Hill House real or apart of peoples' imagination? Professor John Markway (Richard Johnson) seeks to find the answer. He employs "witnesses" to the fact - Eleanor Lance (Julie Harris), Theodora (Claire Bloom), and Luke Sanderson (Russ Tamblyn). Eleanor is a displaced, repulsed neurotic - similar to Catherine Deneuve's character in Polankski's REPULSION (1965). She has decided to leave her sister's home, and spend a weekend in Hill House - just to get away from it all. Theodora is a lesbian/psychic with one goal - to sweep Eleanor off her feet. Sanderson is the true skeptic. He is a playboy who plans to inherit the house for his own greed. The film does have some scary moments. The cinematography is brilliant in black and white - appropriate for this type of movie. Finally, all I know is after I saw this film - I had fallen in love with the beautiful English actress, Claire Bloom. I never knew who she was until I saw this film. She certainly deserved an Oscar nomination for this movie. I will definately pay more attention to her career from now on. Her other movies include LIMELIGHT (1952), THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD (1965), and CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS (1989), just to name a few. Her character doesn't have to look like Catherine Zeta-Jones (with exposed breasts) in order to make herself very sexy. Bloom's provocative mannerism and attitude do the job "purrrrfectly".
There are some problems with the film, too. Harris' character is annoying. She is overacting in some scenes. Her voice-over thoughts about Hill House are similar to PSYCHO (for example, Marion Crane's travel to Bates Motel while she plots to extort money from her boss). Also, there should have been more emphasis on the house at night. The Shirley Jackson novel has Eleanor wandering Hill House at night and she discovers more eerie things. The fact that Luke has a crush on Theodora, who has a crush on Eleanor, who has a crush on Markway, is a MAJOR flaw to this film. Finally, today's audience demands special effects. I don't know if special effects would be needed for this movie, but an occasional fog-like effect at night coming through the window or under the door would have worked to some degree. That's probably why POLTERGEIST (1982) succeeded, where this film fails. All in all, a good horror film. Pros: Claire Bloom, atmosphere, cinematography
Cons: Julie Harris, no special effects, where's the beef? Score: 80 (out of 100)
Rating:  - Still creepy after all these years...
I first saw "The Haunting" before I was ten years old. It scared me then and, thirty-odd years later, still sends chills down my spine. It is, has been, and always will be, the classic horror film. I am a fan of Shirley Jackson, too, and having read the novel recently for the first time, I was quite pleased with the movie's interpretation. I recently watched the remake and was sorely disappointed - it was very badly made, the dialogue was sophomoric, there wasn't a single element of suspense you couldn't picture ahead of time, and with the exception of using some of the characters' original names from Ms. Jackson's book, it neither resembled the original story line, nor had the impact of either the book or the original movie. I was totally bored and found it generally to be an entire waste of celluloid. I highly recommend the original movie to anyone who likes good, old fashioned, horror movies, without the computer effects, gore or violence rampant in today's films. You are left at the mercy of your own imagination watching this film - remember, it's what you don't see that can hurt you.
Rating: - A Classic Haunted House Movie
The key strength of Robert Wise's movie is its ability to keep the idea of a possessed, evil house somewhat down to Earth, somewhat plausible, where eerieness is the goal, not getting audiences to jump out of their seats at the sight of Elm Street slashers or bloody heads floating around. I think the scenes at the beginning of the movie depicting the history of the house are the essence of plausible supernatural creepiness, unlike corny "Poltergeist" or hokey "The Haunting of Hell House." And Wise's work is sophisticated, unlike shock-and-shlock films in the "Halloween" or "Friday the 13th" category. The novel by Shirley Jackson, which "The Haunting" is based on, contained key scenes that were effective and contributed to the eerieness of her story (the rickety spiral staircase, for example). But I thought Robert Wise and his screenwriter were very clever in eliminating scenes that were far too literal-minded (e.g., Theo finding red liquid -- blood? -- splattered all over her clothes and bedroom walls) or that took away from the impenetrable, evil-lurking-inside sense of the mansion (for instance, Nell and Theo encountering apparitions of a family on a picnic out in the garden). Â The screenplay also eliminated distracting, extraneous characters (e.g., the chauffeur of the doctor's wife) and less creepy plot ideas (2 daughters -- vs Hugh Crain's only child Abigal -- who have legal battles over the mansion, which they both move out of during their lifetime---compared with the story of someone spending her entire spinster life cooped up in the mansion and, most strangely, its nursery.) Also, the idea of the nursery room -- kept locked and unseen until the end -- as the evil heart of the house, with the cold spot directly outside the door, contributes to the movie's eerieness. Technically, Wise's film is well executed -- Citizen Kane-ish -- especially for the genre of ghost/haunted house movies. The sets -- particularly if Wise didn't use the interiors of a real mansion -- are quite realistic and creepy. And I thought Robert Wise using the monologue approach to capture the weak, neurotic nature of the Julie Harris character adds to the film's stressful tone. However, there can be moments bordering on melodrama, such as when the professor, at the foot of the staircase, tells Luke not to be so confident in his disbelief of the supernatural or when Luke gives his little closing line at the end of the film. Â But, overall, if a truly evil, haunted house could be found and verified, I'd imagine a documentary depicting such a place wouldn't be necessarily far more non-fictional-like and believable than the 1963 movie "The Haunting."
|
