Product: The Haunting [VHS] (1999)
Rating: 2.0
APALLINGLY BAD VERSION OF SHIRLEY JACKSON'S CLASSIC STORY
My sister rented the DVD and we watched it at midnight last week; I should have hit the sack instead! This movie version of Jackson's brilliant novel "The Haunting of Hill House" is infinitely inferior to the 1963 version starring Julie Harris. Overblown and badly acted, this movie has one ludicrous script and the set, which is meant to be impressive, misses the intentions of the original story. Liam Neeson is totally out of his realm in this hodgepodge - Lilli Taylor would have made a great Eleanor if it weren't for the banalities of the script and the ludicrous additions to the story: the children, her Great-Grandmother, making eccentric Hugh Crain into Lucifer personified, etc. The original novel has a lot to recommend it and these fabricated aspects definitely are not among them. Catherine Zeta-Jones makes a visually arresting Theo,and she's really the only character in the film which comes alive and rings true. Owen Wilson's interpretation of Luke Sanderson comes off as just plain stupid and Neeson seems completely lost. Shirley Jackson fans around the world are sorely dissappointed in the misinterpretation of her work and this film which is basically a waste of money, talent and the viewers time!