Review of The Haunting (1963) by Bryan C — 08 Dec 2008

The movie works surprisingly well at generating fear considering the scares are nothing but noise on the soundtrack. Between the scares, though, there is a lot of weak, obvious narration and too much naive babbling about the supernatural.

I'd call this film somewhat overrated. It's not as rich as The Innocents, and Poltergeist pretty much trumps it in every way except for psychological depth, which Julie Harris manages to convey despite her dopey narration.

There's some lovely photography too. It scared a bunch of 11-year-olds so I'm happy. Written by Nelson Gidding (Andromeda Strain).