The Haunting
by Robert Wise
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Actor: Claire Bloom, Fay Compton, Julie Harris, Richard Johnson, Russ TamblynDirector: Robert Wise
Brand: Warner Brothers
Cinematographer: Davis Boulton
Producer: Robert Wise
Editor: Ernest Walter
Producer: Denis Johnson
Writer: Nelson Gidding
Writer: Shirley Jackson
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Anamorphic, Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 112 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-08-05
Audience Rating: G (General Audience)
Studio: Warner Home Video
DVD Reviews of The Haunting
DVD Review: A True Classic From a Master Film Maker
Summary: 5 Stars
Robert Wise is not as well known to the general public as, say, Hitchcock or Kubrick but he was truly a master of his craft. The imagery, the stunning black & white photography, the widescreen aspect ratio, the editing, the music (so atonal and creepy), the set design (also creepy). Can you tell I love this film? Every Wise film is finely crafted and some (The Haunting, West Side Story, The Sound of Music, The Day the Earth Stood Still) are true cinema classics. Bravo Mr. Wise!DVD Review: DVD review
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased this dvd in order to replace an old off the air recording. Since I am getting rid of my old vcr in favor of a dvr unit, I wanted a copy of this movie in good condition. It is of great quality unlike the recording I had been watching.DVD Review: The Scream Of The Crop
Summary: 5 Stars
Brilliantly directed by the late, great Robert Wise, 'The Haunting' is definitely a film that deserves its reputation as a classic -- perhaps THE classic -- of the genre.
Along with Kubrick's 'The Shining', Jack Clayton's 'The Innocents', Peter Medak's 'The Changeling', and John Hough's 'The Legend Of Hell House', this is one of the very finest examples of what Stephen King refers to as stories about the archetypal "Bad Place". (Having written 'The Shining' HE oughtta know!) And, believe me, Hill House is one of the baddest places around!
Masterfully edited, shot in gorgeous wide-screen black and white, and utilizing infrared filters in a remarkable way to bring out the toweringly poisonous "personality" of Hill House, Wise managed to create one of the most skin-crawlingly disturbing atmospheres imaginable.
Along with the films' characters, the viewer soon feels that they are also "bottled up" inside the monstrous mansion like so many insects waiting for a spider to pounce.
And pounce the house does, although often in surprisingly subtle ways that rely much more on the imagination of the viewer and less on graphic special effects.
Seldom has the use of sound played such an unnerving role in the creation of fear and dread as it does here (although 'The Exorcist' comes to mind in this regard as well, with its well-deserved Oscar for Best Sound). Sometimes a high-pitched woman's laugh echoing down a corridor or a man's deep, muffled voice murmuring indistinctly behind a wall in the dead of night -- especially when NO man or woman should BE there -- can be far creepier than all the gore and prosthetics that Hollywood can throw at you.
And this is not to denigrate the use of expert make-up or effects when expertly USED in the right way and to the right ends. But there is sure something to be said for being able to get maximum impact with the minimum of visuals on display, and this is something that 'The Haunting' does in spades.
It also manages to improve -- via Nelson Gidding's superlative screenplay -- upon Shirley Jackson's celebrated and gorgeously written source novel 'The Haunting Of Hill House'. Upon reading it several years ago, I was surprised by a number of elements that struck me as rather clumsy, obvious or melodramatically clich? compared to the far subtler and/or more original handling of the equivalent moments in the film. And one only needs to skim the Amazon customer reviews for both this film and its utterly unnecessary color remake to get a strong idea of which version is generally felt to be more effective and frightening.
I must also make special mention of the unforgettably unsettling musical score by Humphrey Searle and the magnificently moody cinematography by Davis Boulton which help bring Hill House to hideous life as a character all its own. And I suspect that the virtuoso editing, which I've mentioned before, has, perhaps less to do with the credited editor, Ernest Walter, than it does with the man who edited 'Citizen Kane' -- i.e. a certain Mr. Robert Wise!
But this is not to ignore the all-important human factor either, with classic performances by its marvelous ensemble of actors, each sheer perfection in their roles. And even though she has only a few minutes of total screen time, you won't soon forget THE single creepiest housekeeper in the history of cinema (including Mrs. Danvers in 'Rebecca'!). And if her signature "in the night... in the dark" refrain doesn't make your blood run just a bit colder then you're a bolder soul than I!
In fact, I suppose this is a good time for a singular and, perhaps, surprising confession: namely that this is THE one film that, to this day, I am truly uncomfortable watching alone at night. And this is coming from a dude who has seen, without notable problems or discomfort, just about everything the horror genre has to offer. And yet THIS one STILL manages to get under my skin in a way that I find difficult to shake and that disturbs me in a not particularly enjoyable way.
A friend of mine once made me turn off the film halfway through simply because she found the atmosphere just too dreadfully disturbing. So at least I KNOW I'm not alone in this reaction.
And while visual shocks don't play THE major role in this particular cinematic haunting, that's NOT to say that there aren't a couple memorable visual scares to be found -- two involving doors, and two involving walls. But no spoilers here: ya gotta see the film!
I'll just end this by saying that, much as I adore Kubrick's amazingly menacing Overlook Hotel, and as much spooky mayhem as The Belasco House (in 'Legend Of Hell House') dredges up, it's Robert Wise's malevolently forbidding Hill House that you could NOT pay me a million bucks to spend a single night alone in! And, believe me, I could USE that money!
A FINAL NOTE OF INTEREST: My wife and I, on vacation in the U.K. (where she's from), DID actually spend a delightfully memorable afternoon in and all around the imposing yet beautiful Ettington Hall which became the hideously uninviting Hill House in Wise's film. And guess what? The place IS actually haunted -- or so the legend states -- by the spirits of two children who drowned in a river on the property, and by a woman who threw herself from one of the tower windows. Be that as it may, the atmosphere of the old edifice in person is infinitely more pleasant and charming than in the film. And, indeed, it's almost hard to connect the diseased looking malevolence of the massive, cathedral-like pile in the movie with the smaller seeming and much prettier mansion one sees with one's own eyes. But here's a hint: COLOR makes a BIG difference! (Bob -- you were Wise, indeed, to shoot in good ol' B&W!)
AND A FINAL NOTE OF WARNING: If you MUST watch this film alone, take my advice and DON'T watch it "In the night... In the dark"!
DVD Review: Really? This is a classic?
Summary: 1 Stars
I'll state right off the bat that I enjoy the 1999 version of this movie, but since so many people who don't like that movie state it is because of this version I thought I would check it out. I rented "The Haunting" and sat down to watch it with my mother - who did not recall seeing it back in the 60's. Right off the bat, we agreed that Julie Harris was really annoying as "Eleanor." She played that character like she was already crazy - there was nowhere for her go with it. She may have been going for fragile, but she failed. But we kept with the movie for awhile until mom couldn't take it anymore, said "This is boring," and left. I tried, but ended up fast-forwarding through most of the rest until I got to the doctor's wife arriving at the house. A little creepiness occurred when she appeared out of the ceiling near the end (she was lost in the house and found a trap door that opened to a library ladder), but frankly by that point I just didn't care.
Sometimes, the classics are not all they are cracked up to be and this is one of them. And, yes, to a previous reviewer, I watched it all the way through with the lights out - no problem. I'll take the 1999 version over this - and Poltergeist over the both of them.
DVD Review: I dare you to watch this movie in the dark! Really! I can't!
Summary: 5 Stars
No CGI, no gore, no nudity. Which means many people under 30 probably won't like this movie. I'm not a big fan of the role played by Julie Harris (her whining gets really old!)but this movie delivers chills and the creeps without all the predictable junk found in many new "horror" flicks. I have only seen this movie on TV,so I can't review the quality of the DVD recording. But I'm going to find out, as I am about to buy it. Enjoy!
Description of The Haunting
A group is introduced to the supernatural through a 90-year old New England haunted house. Be prepared for hair-raising results in this classic horror film!Certain to remain one of the greatest haunted-house movies ever made, Robert Wise's The Haunting (1963) is antithetical to all the gory horror films of subsequent decades, because its considerable frights remain implicitly rooted in the viewer's sensitivity to abject fear. A classic spook-fest based on Shirley Jackson's novel The Haunting of Hill House (which also inspired the 1999 remake directed by Jan de Bont), the film begins with a prologue that concisely establishes the dark history of Hill House, a massive New England mansion (actually filmed in England) that will play host to four daring guests determined to investigate--and hopefully debunk--the legacy of death and ghostly possession that has given the mansion its terrifying reputation.
Consumed by guilt and grief over her mother's recent death and driven to adventure by her belief in the supernatural, Eleanor Vance (Julie Harris) is the most unstable--and therefore the most vulnerable--visitor to Hill House. She's invited there by anthropologist Dr. Markway (Richard Johnson), along with the bohemian lesbian Theodora (Claire Bloom), who has acute extra-sensory abilities, and glib playboy Luke Sanderson (Russ Tamblyn, from Wise's West Side Story), who will gladly inherit Hill House if it proves to be hospitable. Of course, the shadowy mansion is anything but welcoming to its unwanted intruders. Strange noises, from muffled wails to deafening pounding, set the stage for even scarier occurrences, including a door that appears to breathe (with a slowly turning doorknob that's almost unbearably suspenseful), unexplained writing on walls, and a delicate spiral staircase that seems to have a life of its own.
The genius of The Haunting lies in the restraint of Wise and screenwriter Nelson Gidding, who elicit almost all of the film's mounting terror from the psychology of its characters--particularly Eleanor, whose grip on sanity grows increasingly tenuous. The presence of lurking spirits relies heavily on the power of suggestion (likewise the cautious handling of Theodora's attraction to Eleanor) and the film's use of sound is more terrifying than anything Wise could have shown with his camera. Like Jack Clayton's 1961 chiller, The Innocents, The Haunting knows the value of planting the seeds of terror in the mind, as opposed to letting them blossom graphically on the screen. What you don't see is infinitely more frightening than what you do, and with nary a severed head or bloody corpse in sight, The Haunting is guaranteed to chill you to the bone. --Jeff Shannon
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