The Haunting (1963 film)
The Haunting is a 1963 horror film directed and produced by Robert Wise, adapted by Nelson Gidding from Shirley Jackson's 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House. It stars Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, and Russ Tamblyn. The film depicts the experiences of a small group of people invited by a paranormal investigator to investigate a purportedly haunted house.
The Haunting
The Haunting of Hill House
1959 novel
by Shirley Jackson
Robert Wise[1]
Davis Boulton
Ernest Walter
- 21 August 1963 (U.S.)
- 9 January 1964 (U.K.)
114 minutes[2]
English
$1.05 million
$1.02 million[6]
Screenwriter Gidding, who had worked with director Wise on the 1958 film I Want to Live!, began a six-month write of the script after reading the book, which Wise had given to him. He perceived the book to be more about mental breakdown than ghosts, and although he was informed after meeting author Shirley Jackson that it was very much a supernatural novel, elements of mental breakdown were introduced into the film. The film was shot at the MGM-British Studios near London, UK on a budget of US$1.05 million, with exteriors and the grounds shot at Ettington Park (now the Ettington Park Hotel) in the village of Ettington, Warwickshire. Julie Harris was cast by Wise, who found her ideal for the psychologically fragile Eleanor, though during production she suffered from depression and had an uneasy relationship with her co-stars. The interior sets were by Elliot Scott, credited by Wise as instrumental in the making of The Haunting. They were designed to be brightly lit, with no dark corners or recesses; all the rooms had ceilings to create a claustrophobic effect on film. Numerous devices and tricks were used in the filming. Wise used a 30mm anamorphic, wide-angle lens Panavision camera that was not technically ready for use and caused distortions. It was only given to Wise on condition that he sign a memorandum in which he acknowledged that the lens was imperfect. Wise and cinematographer Davis Boulton planned sequences that kept the camera moving, utilizing low-angle takes, and incorporating unusual pans and tracking shots.
The film was released on 18 September 1963. In 2010, The Guardian newspaper ranked it as the 13th-best horror film of all time.[7] Director Martin Scorsese has placed The Haunting first on his list of the 11 scariest horror films of all time.[8] The Haunting was released on DVD in its original screen format with commentary in 2003, and was released on Blu-ray on 15 October 2013. The film was remade in 1999 by director Jan de Bont, starring Liam Neeson, Lili Taylor, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Owen Wilson, but that version received generally negative reviews from critics.
Release[edit]
Critical reception[edit]
The Haunting opened in New York and Los Angeles on 18 September 1963.[43] Audiences were frightened by it. Film critic Dora Jane Hamblin related how four of her female friends went to see the film, which proved so frightening that afterwards, the group spent fifteen minutes looking for the contents of their purses, which had spilled onto the floor over the course of the movie as the women jumped out of their seats from fear.[44] In Houston, Texas, a local cinema promoted the film as so chilling that it held a contest to see which of four patrons could sit all the way through a midnight screening; the prize was $100.[45] Despite these stunts, The Haunting was only an average success at the box office.[46]
The Haunting opened to mixed reception, the consensus generally being that it was a stylish film but had major flaws in the plot and lacked excitement. Variety called the acting effective, Davis Boulton's cinematography extraordinarily dexterous and visually exciting, and Elliott Scott's production design of the "monstrous" house most decidedly the star of the film. However, the unnamed reviewer felt Gidding's screenplay had "major shortcomings" in that the plot was incomprehensible at points, and the motivation for the characters was poor.[47] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times cited The Haunting as "one of the most highly regarded haunted house films ever produced" but surmised that "there is really no point to it".[48] Writing in The Atlantic magazine, critic Pauline Kael called the film "moderately elegant and literate and expensive", but criticised Russ Tamblyn for being "feeble [and] cowardly-comic".[49] She considered the film to be superior to Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, also released in 1963, yet didn't consider it to be a great film.[50] Kael said of it, "It wasn't a great movie but I certainly wouldn't have thought that it could offend anyone. Yet part of the audience at The Haunting wasn't merely bored, it was hostile—as if the movie, by assuming interests they didn't have, made them feel resentful or inferior. I've never felt this in an audience toward crude, bad movies… But the few scattered people at The Haunting were restless and talkative, the couple sitting near me arguing—the man threatening to leave, the woman assuring him that something would happen. In their terms, they were cheated: nothing happened. And, of course, they missed what was happening all along, perhaps because of nervous impatience or a primitive notion that the real things are physical."[50]
A decidedly mixed-to-negative review came from Shirley Jackson, the author of the source novel. After seeing the picture at a preview screening, she told her parents that "it is actually a very poor movie, the plot of the book changed radically, and far too much talk", although she admitted that the film contained some frightening scenes and had praise for the art direction and cinematography. After a second viewing a few weeks later, she told her friend Libbie Burke that she and her son Barry "nearly went to sleep", and that the scariest part of the day was that she had gotten a parking ticket while inside the theatre.[51]
The film's stature and following have grown steadily since its original release.[46] Director Martin Scorsese placed The Haunting first on his list of the 11 scariest horror films of all time.[52] Richard Johnson says that Steven Spielberg considers The Haunting one of the "seminal films" of his youth, and Robert Wise says that Spielberg told him The Haunting was "the scariest film ever made!"[30] Richard Armstrong in Rough Guide to Film (2007) called it "one of the most frightening films ever made", and said Julie Harris' performance is played "with an intensity that is frightening in itself".[53] In 2010, The Guardian newspaper ranked it as the 13th-best horror film of all time.[54] However, not all critics think so highly of the film; Yoram Allon and Neil LaBute have stated that they believe the film is "frankly overrated",[55] and filmmaker Russell Evans has argued that few people truly find the film shocking or disturbing.[56] Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes scores the film with an 87% rating based on 45 reviews, with an average rating of 8/10. The critical consensus reads: "Both psychological and supernatural, The Haunting is a chilling character study."[57] The film was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Director (Robert Wise).
In 2010, Cinema Retro magazine hosted a screening of the film at Ettington Park, the country house used for exterior shots of Hill House. Richard Johnson was a special guest at the event and participated in a Q&A prior to the screening. Johnson said that he had never actually set foot in the hall during filming, and that this was the first occasion he had actually been inside the premises.[58]
Home media[edit]
In 1990, media mogul Ted Turner announced he would begin colourising black-and-white motion pictures to make them more pleasing to audiences watching his cable networks. The announcement generated extensive controversy. Touring Turner's colourisation facilities as a member of the Directors Guild, Wise learned that Turner was colourising The Haunting. Wise was able to prevent the colourisation by pointing to his contract, which stated the picture could only be in black-and-white.[30]
Warner Home Video released the film on VHS in pan-and-scan format in 1998.[59] It was released on DVD in its original screen format in 2003. The DVD release included voice-over commentary from Wise, Gidding, Bloom, Harris, Johnson and Tamblyn.[60] The film was released on Blu-ray with the same commentary track on 15 October 2013.[61]
Remakes[edit]
A remake of the film was attempted in the early 1990s by horror author Stephen King. King pitched the project under the name Rose Red to Steven Spielberg.[62][63][64] The project went into turnaround and a complete script was written, but Spielberg demanded more thrills and action sequences while King wanted more horror.[62][64] King and Spielberg mutually agreed to shelve the project after several years of work, and King bought back the rights to the script.[62] King returned to the project in 1999, completed a revised script, and successfully pitched the script to producer Mark Carliner.[64][65] King's revised script aired as a miniseries titled Rose Red in 2002, but bears only superficial resemblance to The Haunting.
The Haunting was formally remade in 1999 under the same title. Horror director Wes Craven initially worked on the project, but abandoned it.[66] This adaptation, directed by Jan de Bont, starred Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Owen Wilson and Lili Taylor in the roles of Markway (now named Marrow), Theo, Luke and Eleanor.[67]
Bibliography