by The Polar One

Created on: March 06, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

The Haunting (1963)

Most of us have heard of the 1999 re-make of The Haunting, and even more so what an utter flop it was. So what about the original? Read on.

The Haunting's tagline, "You may not believe in ghosts but you cannot deny terror", is surprisingly accurate to my own experience of this film. While I like a good ghostly yarn about headless knights, poltergeists, and scorned lovers back from the grave, I tend to consider anyone that seriously believes it all to be somewhat unhinged. Their hallucinations are obviously stress related or caused by sunspots. That makes sense. This is one of the few films that really sends a shiver down my spine, and I know I'll be looking up 'Ghostbusters' in the phone directory by five in the morning.

As with most haunted house tales, the story is simple, and mostly set up in a fairly gruesome and quick introduction. Hill House was born bad. It is a deranged and leprous mansion miles from any other dwellings in New England. Ever since Hugh Crane had it built over 90 years ago, its history has been riddled with mysterious deaths and incidents. For years it has been left empty, and remains largely the source of gossip and morbid curiosity. Dr John Markway is fascinated by Hill House as a subject for his investigations into the supernatural world. He believes that its turbulent reputation could be proven true, and allow him to record groundbreaking evidence of the existence of ghosts or something more. He convinces the landlady to allow him and a team of researchers to stay in the house for a couple of weeks.

The design of Hill House is as much a part of the success of this film as anything else. It is a very foreboding building from the outside and the sets inside compliment it marvelously. It is grand in every sense and yet full of quirks. One of the most interesting being the concept that it was built with all the door and corridor angles just a few degrees off at every junction, leading to an overall distorted feeling of being lost in the house. Director Robert Wise (The Day The Earth Stood Still, West Side Story, The Andromeda Strain) uses a number of lingering shots to gradually build up the atmosphere. He makes even the most static image come alive, transforming shadows into hideous figures, pitting your own imagination against yourself.

The team of researchers is an interesting mix of characters designed to be identification figures for the audience. Dr Markway (Richard Johnson) serves to feed our child-like wishes for

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