Product: The Haunting [VHS] (1999)
Rating: 2.0
Neither here nor there
I've read "The Haunting of Hill House" and consider it among the most overrated ghost stories ever written. It's painfully boring, rambling and about as frightening as a Barbara Eden Christmas special. The original Robert Wise film, starring Julie Harris and Claire Bloom was more effective than the novel in every way. Despite its "G" rating it was a genuinely eerie experience, mainly because it shed the inconsequential and superfluous layers off the novel. Now comes the dreaded remake, with a set so over the top that it makes you ask yourself who in their right mind would have built such a mammoth edifice and why? The plot was changed considerably (read excessively) and the lesbian overtones implied in the Jackson novel are no longer implied, robbing the film of one of its more important facets. The acting is pedestrian, save Lili Taylor who provided her character with some feeling. Liam Neeson seems asleep as the doctor in charge of the experiment in "insomnia." Catherine Zeta-Jones is gorgeous to look at, but that's about it. Though in Ms. Zeta-Jones defense, I don't think Maggie Smith or Judi Dench could have made much of the character. The line about the Prada Milan boots was laughable and unnecessary. The script is continuously plagued by ineffectual dialogue and asinine comments that have nothing at all to do with the plot; case in point, the Milanese boots. The special effects were excessive and garish, as if Jan De Bont meant for them to be the sole reason behind the film. It's something like, would you like a little plot line to go with your special effects or would that be too distracting? Not the worse film I've ever seen, that honor still belongs to "Plan 9 From Outer Space," but a perfect example of Hollywood at its most bloated and trite.