Product: The Haunting [VHS] (1999)
Rating: 2.0
Halfway decent beginning destroyed by terrible ending.
The beginning was pretty decent, more or less following the story of Shirley Jackson's novel, although the attempt at updating the character's motives for being in the house was ludicrous. Gone from this film was the subtlety of the original. When reading the book or watching the original movie, the audience (or reader) is left wondering whether the story is about a woman going insane or a haunted house claiming a soul. This movie, with admittedly great effects by Phil Tippett, leaves no doubt. There are ghosts in that place, as loud & obvious as the ghosts in the far superior Poltergeist. The house was no longer built with the angles ever so slightly off, but instead merely slapped togather haphazardly. Gone also is the rivalry between the two female leads, and the creepiest part in the book and the original movie is reduced to a single absurd line in this film ("who was holding my hand?"). There is one genuinely scary part of the movie-- when, during some mysterious banging, Lilli Taylor wakes up and addresses her dead mother (who, while ill, would call to Lilli by banging on the wall.) It was the one moment which stuck in the imagination. Jan deBont should stick to movies with big guns, that is if he is ever allowed to make another movie. Catherine Zeta-Jones was great to look at & did a whole lot with very, very little. Liam Neeson had no need to care about his performance; he was in Star Wars: Episode I-The Phantom Menace. Lili Taylor, always impressive in independant movies, still proves herself capable & deserving of better material than this (although considering the literary source, she was well-cast.) Owen Wilson was likewise competent. But unfortuneately, this movie proves that good acting & good special effects can't make up for a shoddy script, and a director who just can't do subtlety.