By far the most significant talent at work in The Haunting is production designer Eugenio Zanetti. What Dreams May Come . For The Haunting , he created a mad vision of a robber baron s palace, as gaudy as it is foreboding. Close behind Mr. Zanetti are visual effects supervisors Phil Tippett and Craig Hayes , both of Jurassic Park fame. They came up with dozens of ways for this bizarre heap of stone to seem alive.
Carvings come to life, hands reach out of solid doors, curtains take on the shape of ghosts.
That s the good news. The bad news is that the sets, the special effects and several fine actors are put to no good use. So he tricks a group of insomniacs into spending a week at an old house, where he recounts old legends about the evil tycoon who built the place. Before long, she is communing with mobs of ghosts of children killed by the evil tycoon, plus an ex-wife or two. She decides she has a special role to play so she can t leave.