Product: The Haunting [VHS] (1999)
Rating: 1.0
I'm still laughing....
It takes courage to create comedy these days, particularly when you weren't intending to. What a shame that the talented Liam Neeson's first film that evokes sustained laughter does so because it's so bad, it's funny. Although based upon excellent material, this film slathers on the special effects with such ridiculous excess that the result generates all the intelligent believability of the "Poltergeist" films.What the film makers missed here is that the "Haunting of Hill House" story is intended to be a study of the effects of believable paranormal phenomena on a set of variously impressionable characters. As such, it requires the creation of scenes which indeed mimic reported paranormal experiences. And since there are just about no known cases of carved cherubs constantly changing facial expressions, or huge cast statues coming to malevolent life (much less someone getting their head knocked off by ghostly actions), the key concept of "credibility" is just a bit lacking here, to say the least.In short, if you really want to scare people, it's going to take more than just a "Ghostbusters gets serious" approach. The genesis of a convincing ghostly paranormal environment in which to play out the drama requires a concept completely lacking in this film - subtlety. Any ghost story based upon known reported incidents would build on unexplained sounds, unclear anomalous visions, and the human mind interpreting impressions and feelings. In other words, the exact approach followed by Robert Wise in creating the tremendously superior original 1963 film. The new film seemed to try at first to follow that path, but just couldn't keep itself from launching into a crescendo of splashy but totally unconvincing special effects. Toward the end, I'll admit I was looking for the Stay-Puff marshmallow man to get blown up!Do your self a favor and forget this film, unless you like a perverse belly-laugh. Go out and rent or buy the 1963 film, and see how a fine psychological horror film is really made.