Review of The Haunting (1999) by Sarah E — 08 Jun 2011

The Haunting is the answer to a somewhat tragic question: whatever happened to good, old fashioned haunted house movies? Unfortunately, it's answer is somewhat Nietzschean: good, old fashioned haunted house movies are dead; special effects killed them. Given the overall quality of The Haunting, I'm not sure this is an answer I should be lamenting, but then again, this means the death of practical effects too, and I happen to love me some practical effects.

There are the makings of a good movie in The Haunting to be sure. The set-up is almost clever in a way: Doctor Mirrow is conducting a psychological study at a beautiful home in the Berkshires known as Hill House, and he's invited his participants to come spend a few days trying to sleep in the manor. The pretenses for his study are a great device for a horror film. There really is no better explanation for people to wander a haunted house at night unless they are all insomniacs. Of course, Mirrow's real study is on fear and hysteria, not insomnia, but the participants don't need to know that. Not until strange things start to happen, of course, but by then it's too late.

Obviously, there's some thought to this screenplay. It would be interesting to see Lili Taylor, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Owen Wilson behave like rats in Liam Neeson's maze, torn between supernatural explanations for the haunting of Hill House and the nature of Mirrow's study. It would also be interesting to see the characters react to more than just cheap thrill tactics, because there are some real characters in this movie. There's Taylor's Eleanore, so desperately needy and lost in the wake of her mother's death; Zeta-Jones's Theo, the wild and promiscuous artist; and Wilson's humble and well-meaning Luke. There's even flickers of Mirrow having a personality thanks to Neeson's intensity. There's a lot of fun to be had in a haunted house when personalities collide and supernatural shit hits the fan.

Unfortunately, all the good things about this movie take a backseat to the special effects, which are utterly pointless, poorly rendered, and only serve to radically change the tone of the film. The Haunting begins as a gothic mystery and ends like an action film, with statues coming to life and huge explosions rocking the beautiful manor. Worse, try as they might, none of the actors can react believably to any of the events on screen. The haunting then becomes superfluous, because unless the characters acknowledge their experiences in a greater capacity than simply encountering something supernatural, the occurrence remains overlooked for the rest of the film.