(1963)Two women and a man accompany Dr. John Markway to a creepy old house to investigate paranormal phenomena. Hill House has a past history and anyone who has tried to stay there in the last several years has only made it a couple of nights before leaving. Both men are skeptics, Luke is there because he is the heir to the house. While Eleanor and Theodora were both invited by Markway because of their connection to the supernatural. Eleanor immediately feels a connection to the house and the longer they stay the more she is drawn in by it.
I hadn't seen this version of The Haunting since as long as I can remember. I recently saw the remake with Lili Taylor which I thought wasn't bad in spite of Owen Wilson's comedic antics. Anyway, seeing it prompted me to add this to my list. The house is genuinely creepy and huge. I'm not sure if I would want to stay there. Every night Eleanor hears voices and laughter coming through the walls. This film has all the tools to make it a great horror but I feel it doesn't stand up as well as it should. First of all, we have the benefit of hearing Eleanor's thoughts. I know this was done so that we would understand what she was experiencing and I guess there wasn't another way they could have done it. However, it's very distracting and I became irritated with it. Like the woman thinking aloud, “Jim never has a second cup of coffee at home” in the Airplane movie. The other thing is that it never really captures that tense feeling that most haunting style films go for. It's almost there at times, like all of them standing in the cold spot up the upstairs hallway. Still, the performances are solid, the plot is good and the house in itself is quite ominous so it still stands as a pretty solid film. It's just lost some of it's magic for me over the years.
3 comments:
I really enjoyed this one and I reviewed it last year. The thing I remember the most is that the house itself is almost another character in the film. I wouldn't want to stay in this place either. I agree about the distraction of hearing a character's thoughts. At some point I want to compile a list of all the haunted house films, there are so many good ones.
One of my favorites is The Changeling with George C. Scott. The effects in that simplistic as they may be, combined with Scott's fine acting just sends it over the top for me.
I've never seen this, but I can think of one college friend for whom it was a key scary film they saw as a kid.
I saw the remake a while ago and hated it.
I like the idea of that list! It should include 1408.
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