Under the guise of a sleep study, Psychiatrist Dr. Jeffrey Marrow takes three insomniacs to Hill House, a secluded mansion in Massachusetts that has an old and horrifying haunted reputation. His true intent, however, is to study the effects the creepy gothic mansion will have on the three. However, the mansion's haunting is more--much more--than just imaginary, as the four will find out.
Also known as: The Haunting of Hill House, The Legend of Hill House
Subgenres: action, haunting
Director: Jan de Bont
Starring: Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones
 3 reviews | ||||||||||||
Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House already received a good, faithful adaptation in 1963's The Haunting, so I wasn't bothered by the idea that Speedy director Jan De Bont was going to take his adaptation in another direction. However, what we wound up with was a bunch of good actors running around on beautiful sets but not doing much else. De Bont is in such a hurry to get to his special effects--which are remarkable--that he forgets to give us any time to enjoy those sets. Ditto for Jerry Goldsmith's great score. Which would probably be forgivable, but De Bont also neglected to generate any kind of real chills. Watching this film, I feel as though the people who made it have lost all faith in their audience's ability to be scared by the unknown--so they show us everything, and made a movie that was juuuust this side of boring. And--for me, anyway--the ending reeks of fake sentiment. A note: I rented this film from the late, great Movies Unlimited store in Cherry Hill, NJ, to give it a fair try. I really wanted to like the film, and the second viewing was enough for me to raise my grade back up to its original level--two-and-a-half stars. I still love the sets, and the special effects look neat. I also liked the ideas David Self put in the script about how fear, which was once an adaptive trait, has now become largely inhibiting and even dangerous (and I liked how he used the rest of the story to destroy that idea). But I still disliked the rest of the film. All the haunted house tricks are remarkably obvious and blunted, the characters are bland (with the exception of Owen Wilson's Luke), and there are plot holes the size of Texas. Or at least Manhattan. Upon second watching, the ending seems less ridiculous than ludicrous, and just as full of false emotion.
(?/Oct 31, 1999/May 20, 2000)
Another point of criticism I found was the acting - this I can't understand at all. It is usually the essence of a horror movie that the situation dwarfs the characters. The thrill comes either from an outside evil or from an unconscious and evenly strange and alien source. Both is the case in this one. And with the main character being portrayed by Lili Taylor, they couldn't have made a better choice. Catherine Zeta-Jones, too, fits perfectly in, adding a sense of humor to it, like in the scene in which she tells Eleanor about her bi-sexual adventures, thus scaring the hell out of her. Liam Neeson has a lot more to do and say in this film than in Episode One; although his role could've been bigger.
Neither having seen the original nor having read the book, I cannot make any comparison. Maybe the original was better. But that's not the point. As a stand-alone film, 'The Haunting' is great, and amongst other horror movies, quite outstanding.
(Oct 31, 1999)
|
A cinematic version of Shirley Jackson's 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House. The book was first made into a film in 1963, also called The Haunting.
Hill House is in reality Harlaxton Manor, and was also featured in the 1991 film The Dark Angel.
