Product: The Haunting [VHS] (1999)
Rating: 1.0
One of the first sufferers of "Episode I" Syndrome.
Joel Seigel's review on the front cover of this DVD box says, "a funhouse of shrieks and screams." All I can say is that he must have been referring to the house inside the movie and not the actual movie, because this movie neither made me shriek nor scream. It is a bland, boring, and terrible film right from the start.Why does "The Haunting" suffer from "Episode I" Syndrome? Because it does exactly what "Star Wars Episode I" did: overuse special effects and not develop the characters enough. Throughout the movie, viewers are treated to some teriffic special effects (teriffic for its time, at least), but there is virtually no character development. After watching these actors in this movie, it's pretty hard to believe they can actually act. Dialogue sounds forced and overemotional and even unnatural. Plot development is weak at best, and everyone can easily see that the special effects are there to bring the film out of the slump it has fallen into. Does it work? Sometimes, but the effect wears off as soon as the special effects disappear and the bad plot and acting return.Probably the worst part about this movie is that it's considered an adaptation of Shirley Jackson's classic horror story "The House of Haunted Hill". I haven't seen the classic film entirely, I did see the part involving the spiral staircase. Let me just say that this sequence is done a lot better in "The House of Haunted Hill" than "The Haunting". And while the sequence does have a purpose in "House", it has no purpose in "Haunting" other than to showcase the special effect of the staircase falling apart. If this is any indication of how "Haunting" compares to "House", then "Haunting" is nothing short of blasphemy if it calls itself an adaptation of "House".To put it bluntly, "The Haunting" is a terrible film. I can only reccommend this movie to students majoring in film making and directing so they can see exactly what not to do when making a movie. To everyone else, watch it only if you're extremely bored and if you can watch free on television. Other than that, it's not even worth thinking about.