DVD Movie Rating for: The Haunting

4 out of 5 stars

Movie Plot of: The Haunting

Eleanor Lance is called to meet at Hill House for Dr. Marrow's sleeping disorder studies, along with three other people. The owners of the house tell them that no one will be around and that they won't be able to hear them. The first night they all sit around and talk. Eleanor tells them that her sleeping disorder is different because she can sleep it is just that she wakes up because she thinks her dead mom is still living with her. Well that isn't the case now because she is woken one night in the Hill House bedroom by talking childrens voices asking her for her help. At first scared by the voice, she learns to avoid them. Later, the group finds out that Dr. Marrow is not using them for sleeping disorders but a test in fear. The fear is first thought to be fake but eventually turns real when loud noises are heard and objects start to move. Now they must try an escape the house before they are all killed.

DVD Production Details of: The Haunting

Starring: Lili Taylor, Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta Jones

Director: Jan de Bont

Format: Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby

Studio: Universal/MCA

DVD Release Date: November 23, 1999
DVD Features:
Production notes

Behind-the-Scenes featurette

2 Theatrical Trailers

Widescreen anamorphic format

DVD Easter Eggs

Cast of the movie: The Haunting

• Lili Taylor .... Eleanor 'Nell' Vance
• Liam Neeson .... Dr. David Marrow
• Catherine Zeta-Jones.... Theodora 'Theo'
• Owen Wilson .... Luke Sanderson
• Bruce Dern .... Mr. Dudley
• Marian Seldes .... Mrs. Dudley
• Alix Koromzay .... Mary Lambetta
• Todd Field .... Todd Hackett
• Virginia Madsen .... Jane
• Michael Cavanaugh .... Dr. Malcolm Keogh
• Tom Irwin .... Lou
• Charles Gunning .... Hugh Crain
• Saul Priever .... Ritchie
• M.C. Gainey .... Large Man
• Hadley Eure .... Carolyn Crain

Photo Gallery of the movie: The Haunting

Click on one of the thumbnails to see the full size, high resolution photographs

Reviews of the movie: The Haunting

Suffering from the extreme bad luck of being released at the same time as the low-budget The Blair Witch Project, this adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House attempts to update Shirley Jackson's psychologically terrifying ghost story to the era of big-budget, computerized special effects. Does it work? Well, let's just say that showing isn't exactly the same as telling. A prime example of bloated studio filmmaking, The Haunting telegraphs all its frights so blatantly that it forsakes any of Jackson's subtle horrors for the remedial scares of a clunky carnival ride. The story remains basically the same, with four people called to an old mansion for experiments in the supernatural, but instead of getting inside the heads of its main characters (as the 1963 adaptation by Robert Wise did so well), Jan DeBont's film deserts character development for the huge, glorious set design provided by Eugenio Zanetti (Restoration). Thus, instead of a well-drawn story you get... a well-drawn house, one that four very talented and underutilized actors--Lili Taylor, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Liam Neeson, and Owen Wilson--wander around in endlessly (as Zeta-Jones puts it, the house is "sort of Charles Foster Kane meets the Munsters"). Taylor, as the hypersensitive Nell, is the unknowing lynchpin in the battle between good and bad ghosts and gets saddled with most of the expository dialogue of the mansion's gothic backstory. Zeta-Jones (showing some spark) and Neeson (showing none) are sadly reduced to providing reactionary shots of the film's disastrous climax, which mixes hapless new-age affirmations with computer-generated effects of ghosts and exploding windows, walls, doors, etc. For this haunted-house story, take a quick tour of the breathtaking rooms, but definitely don't stay the night

This is The Haunting to experience
Rating: 10 out of 10; What the rating means in my system: "A must see for everyone with a serious or casual interest in film and anyone else who is not averse to or doesn't otherwise philosophically object to the genre."

The conventional wisdom among the self-appointed horror literati is that compared to the 1963 Robert Wise film of the same name, the 1999 Jan de Bont remake of The Haunting amounts to so much computer effects garbage. As might not surprise anyone familiar with my reviews, I have a perverse, natural tendency to disagree with the self-appointed literati--blame it on whatever you'd like. In my opinion, the 1999 film blows the 1963 one out of the water from just about every possible aspect we can examine.

Here's the obligatory synopsis for anyone not familiar with the Wise film or the overrated Shirley Jackson novel that served as the source material. Dr. David Morrow (Liam Neeson) is a psychology professor. His main research interests are fear and mass hysteria. He sets up a faux experiment for insomniacs at Hill House, which he chooses because it is enigmatic, surreal, and the perfect setting for planting psychological catalysts in suggestible minds. His real goal is to see how far his carefully crafted suggestions will go in making his subjects (and for some odd reason there are only three--Eleanor (Lili Taylor), Theodora (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Luke (Owen Wilson)) think they're experiencing supernatural phenomena. I admit that there may be some minor plausibility problems in the premise, but that's not the fault of either de Bont or Wise, but Jackson's book. In any event, it's horror, which is a fantasy subgenre, so plausibility problems shouldn't be any more marring than the same in a fairy tale.

The most unusual and persistent myth about the 1999 The Haunting is that everything is overblown and not left to your imagination, and that's contrasted with the Wise film. I'm not calling it a myth just because I really happen to like this film, and yes, de Bont shows much more on screen with the aid of various mechanical and computer effects, but he also retains all of the subtle elements of the Wise film. Taylor recreates the psychological torment of Eleanor, and this time without the irritating voice-overs, the complex suggested relationships of the main characters are intact, the weird sounds and flexing walls with unseen sources are still here, etc.

I can't help but feel that there is simply a contingent of horror-fan luddites who automatically dismiss any film that uses computer-assisted effects rather than quick cuts, ketchup and chocolate syrup. If you're one of those `fans', then by all means avoid The Haunting, because as soon as you see a computer-animated ghost working its way along the curtains, you're going to feel an urge to hurl your television set out the window. Some of us don't champion political boycotts of certain techniques and technology, and we don't mind directors blatantly showing us something wild and surreal--in fact we enjoy indulging in other's fantasies. For us, The Haunting will be extremely rewarding.

If you're at all interested in the craft of filmmaking, The Haunting is a must see for the set design if not for anything else. You could spend hours letting your eyes get lost in any given set, and there are tens of them throughout the film. Unlike the Wise film, de Bont comes much closer to realizing the house with no right angles that Jackson mentions in the book. De Bont's Hill House is creepy, disorienting, and sublimely beautiful. It really is a `fifth character' as everyone involved with the film likes to point out, and greatly adds to the spooky atmosphere of the film.

For my money, de Bont's film tells the story much better than either of the previous attempts, and it cuts out almost all of the grating, pointless, non-horror elements like `cups of stars' and `a house with lions in front'. This is a classic haunted house film, full of jolts, shocks, suggestions, mildly graphic elements, and heavy atmosphere. It offers the best of a wide swath of horror styles, and integrates them with fine performances, an excellent score, and some of the best visuals in recent years, resulting in a film that gradually increases in emotional intensity. Traditionalist stiffs should look elsewhere. Everyone else shouldn't miss this one.