All the things we associate with a house, any house. At night, it breathes, murmurs, sputters, shudders and whines. In a sense, a house is a cemetery and library, a repository of all the things that happened in it, however horrible. A house might even bear its occupants a grudge or want to drive them out or swallow them up. But it's not just Spielberg who loves haunted-house films.
Many critics believe it to be one of the most frightening movies ever made.
This dumbing down of the genre is dismaying because many of the best haunted-house films have been the subtlest. Castle's trademark was the publicity-generating gimmick. You looked through one strip if you believed in ghosts, another if you didn't. It was silly, but fun. Less is more.