Review: The Haunting (1963)

There was a time in the not-too-distant past when horror films relied on more than copious levels of CGI and buckets upon buckets of fake blood to scare people. Enter director Robert Wise. Wise read Shirley Jackson's book "The Haunting of Hill House" and was so impressed by it that he swiftly acquired the film rights and met with Jackson herself to talk about making the adaptation to screen.

You have to understand that special effects were not especially sophisticated in the early 60's and when Wise finally got the green light, he had only $1.1 million to work with. Even in today's money, that's a pretty slim budget. Wise compensated by pouring most of his budget into set design, turning Hill House into a character all its own. It was a place of strange angles, labyrinthine rooms, and Gothic extravagance. One could argue that the monster in the movie was not the ghost (or possibly ghosts; it's never clear), but the house itself. And that only adds another layer of depth to one of the most interesting elements of this movie: you never actually see a monster.

The Haunting is rated G, but is actually one of the scariest movies ever made. After watching it for the first time, I had trouble getting to sleep. The only other movies that have ever affected me like that are Rosemary's Baby and Carnival of Souls. Okay, Psycho and the original Halloween did make me skittish about turning corners at night in an unfamiliar house, but I didn't actually lose sleep over them. The point is that Robert Wise's masterpiece of a haunted house flick will scare the bejeezus out of you because Wise knew you're better at scaring yourself when in the proper mood.

As I said, you never actually see the ghost(s). Most of the phenomena is unclear whether it's genuinely supernatural or Eleanor's descent into madness. The gore is nonexistent but the atmosphere is laid on thicker than cement. When the phenomena begins, the camera becomes as mobile as your own eyes might be. The sets are designed in such a way to emphasize the sense of isolation and subtle wrongness. As per the opening lines of the movie: "Silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there... walked alone."

The horror is established not through special effects or violence, but through a continual sense that reality is off. The camera lingers on points until your imagination inserts details. We are treated to a flood of reaction shots from the actors so that we can clearly see how scared they are. We only get one special effect toward the end of the 2nd act, but the buildup surrounding it makes it all the more terrifying. And other than some schizoid cinematography, there are no other special effects for the rest of the film, but you're already in such a terrified state that you don't care.

It's worth noting that everything this movie did right, it's 1999 remake did wrong. Everything was spelled out for you. All the subtlety of the ghostly manifestations was traded in for dodgy CGI, usually involving statues moving. And of course, a house with a tragic history wasn't good enough. No, they had to add in a whole gratuitous and poorly conceived back story about child slavery and murder and a lost descendant of the family line. Oh yeah, spoiler warning there. And of course, the remake just had to have a bloody happy ending. Apparently the filmmakers thought that horror movie fans wanted more happy endings in their favorite genre? The remake was crap is what I'm saying. A great cast unable to save bad writing, overblown CGI special effects, no sense of tact or subtlety, and a plot that made about as much sense as lighting your own head on fire. It wasn't scary at all because it left nothing to the imagination and was so ridiculous that it was impossible to take seriously.

If you are going to do bizarre magic and seances in particular, you must see the original version of this film. If you were to ask me to point to an excellent example of how to scare people with subtlety, implication and atmosphere, I would point you this movie first without even thinking about it. While you're at it, you might as well read Shirley Jackson's original novel as well.