The Haunting
Tags: dark, psychological, haunting

Plot synopsis:
The Haunting (1999) is a remake of the 1963 film, "The Haunting."The movie starts with Eleanor "Nell" Vance (Lili Taylor) arguing with her sister over the house which her recently deceased mother, whom Nell took care of for 11 years, left her sister in the will. After her sister gives her her mother's car, Nell orders her sister, brother-in-law, and nephew to leave. Once she's alone she finds an ad in the local newspaper asking for volunteers to take part in a study on insomnia at an old New England mansion, which Nell decides to join.Elsewhere we find Dr. Marrow (Liam Neeson) discussing with his assistant Mary over which volunteers he should use for his study, which he explains is actually an experiment on how people react to fear.Once Nell arrives at Hill House, she argues politely with Mr. Dudley the caretaker to let her in. After minutes of arguing she finally enters through the gates of Hill House where at the door she finds Mr. Dudley's wife Mrs. Dudley. As Nell makes her way to her room, it's clear that she's instantly drawn to the house.Moments later Theo (Catherine Zeta-Jones) arrives and gives Nell with an awkward homophobic reaction. After the two get to know each other a little better, they both go downstairs and explore, and find the carousel room, then they return to the main entrance and meet Luke (Owen Wilson) Dr. Marrow, and his two assistants Mary and Todd. Once they get to dinner they discuss insomnia issues and find out more about each other, and learn what they'd be doing for the next few days. After dinner, Dr. Marrow leads his guests to a room to tell everyone the story of Hill House and how Hugh Crain had built it for his wife and wished desperately for children, which all died at birth. After Dr. Marrow tells the story his assistant Mary talks about how she can feel the evil everywhere and that there's more to the story. As she goes up to examine the piano one of the strings snaps and cuts her, causing her and Todd to leave for the remainder of the movie.As everyone gets ready for bed Dr. Marrow tells Luke about how Hugh Crain's wife had killed herself, in order to scare Luke. Once upstairs Luke occupies himself with a book and a candy dispenser, while Theo tries to get closer to Nell, and Nell reluctantly asks to go to bed. As Nell and Theo are in bed, Luke decides to wander around, and is met be Dr. Marrow, who decides to talk for a while. As everything calms down for the night Nell is startled by a screaming Theo, in response to a constant mysterious banging on the walls. Nell and Theo cower as Luke rushes to see what the screaming is, although he was unaware of any banging.The next morning everyone tries to talk things out, but Dr. Marrow assures everyone the coldness and noises were all due to the old plumbing.The next night as Nell is asleep the movie encounters it's first visual samples of paranormal activity, and Nell is encountered by ghostly figures taking forms through the bed sheets and curtains.As Nell and Luke are filling out papers for Dr. Marrows research, Luke confides in Nell that Dr. Marrow must be up to something and that he would get to the bottom of things. Luke soon wanders off talking about Theo leaving Nell alone, where she experiences more paranormal events. Everyone quickly rushes in to see what was wrong and finds Nell scared, and concerned over what was happening in the house. While Dr. Marrow and Luke looked around to see what might have startled Eleanor look comes to a frightening observation that the large portrait of Hugh Crain had been vandalized with blood reading, "Welcome Home Eleanor." Eleanor is appalled at the writing and demands to know who did it, but no one confesses, leaving tension between the characters.The group soon makes their way to the green room where they find a large unstable spiral staircase, and a fountain containing a large statue of Hugh Craine, and some more statues of a women surrounded by 6 children.As another night comes we find Nell sleeping, but she is soon awakened by some more sounds. As she looks around she finds a trail of bloody foot prints leading her to a hidden library. In the library she finds logs of hundreds of children that Hugh Craine must have taken in to his house, finding that many of them had actually died working for Hugh Crain. She goes to tell Theo, but Theo doesn't believe what Nell tells her, and goes back to bed.Once Eleanor is alone she starts to brush her hair, but when she stops her hair parts on it's own, and Eleanor is deeply frightened once more.The next morning Nell finds Dr. Marrow's studies, and learns what the experiment actually is. She also finds out that he's interpreting her behavior as delusional.In the statue garden Luke talks to Theo and seems to have also figured out what Dr. Marrow was doing, but when they encounter Nell, she expresses that it's not Dr. Marrow doing everything to the house, and that it's indeed ghosts. She then insists that home is where the heart is. When Nell looks up she sees Hugh Crain's wife hanging, but no one else sees it leading everyone to think even more that Eleanor is mentally unstable and should go home. Nell rushes to the library and finds pictures of Hugh Crain's wife whispering for her to check the fire place. In the fire place Nell finds a skeleton that comes to life causing Nell to run away, following the voices of children. She tries to go through a door but is punched by a hand that formed from the door and soon disappeared.Eleanor rushes to the rest of the group and concludes that Hugh Crain took children from the town to work at the mills then never let them go. As she tells this to Theo, Luke, and Dr. Marrow, they conclude that she's going crazy from emotional distress and fear.As Theo tries talking to Dr. Marrow about her, she finds that they're in an experiment to study reactions to fear, and becomes furious at what the experiment had done to Nell.Once Nell's in bed and Theo finishes comforting her and leaves to bring her tea, the walls form the shape of a face, and everything starts falling apart around her. She runs out and looks in the mirror to see Mrs. Crain's face, and then runs away again to the carousel room. She's then extremely frightened and runs to the green room.Theo, Luke, and Dr. Marrow go searching for Nell and finally come to the green room to find Nell climbing the spiral stair case. Dr. Marrow goes to save her, but the stairway starts to unhinge, causing Dr. Marrow to desperately and quickly bring Nell to safety.Dr. Marrow goes to the green room to examine and take notes, and is grabbed by the statue of Hugh Crain, which them starts to fountain out blood. He runs to Theo and Luke, to go check on Eleanor.Eleanor's bed cages her in metal beams, and Theo, Luke, and Dr. Marrow desperately try to get in to help. Once they get in everyone else finally observes the paranormal aspects of Hill House for the first time. As soon as they get Nell out they try to leave, but Hill House makes sure that there's no way of escaping. Nell then runs back to the house knowing that she's meant to save the children.Everyone runs in looking for her, so they can leave, and they finally find her. Even after Theo tries to compromise with letting her by letting her live with her, Nell refuses to leave until she saves the children. Luke, Theo, and Dr. Marrow still try to escape now that they can't leave the house, but can't find anyway out. Luke then falls into the fire place, and as he's trying to get out he gets decapitated by a stone lion. The house is now coming to life, and everything that can is trying to attack the current occupants.Finally the ghost of Hugh Crain comes out for a final battle, but as his ghost is being sent to the walls Eleanor goes along with it crashing her body against the stone door. She then falls to the ground dying. As Nell dies the children's spirits are release along with her's.The movie ends with the Dudleys returning and a final shot of the house

Review: When I first heard news of a remake of Robert Wise's 1963 film, "The Haunting", I had a fear that it would be ruined by an abundance of summer-movie sized visual effects.
Surely, with such a talented cast intact...De Bont and company will not ruin a film, who's original was a fantastic and frightening movie that understood the delicate art of subtlety.
The "test subjects" that arrive include Eleanor (Lili Taylor), a hard-working woman who has had little success in life, Theo (Catherine Zeta-Jones), an adventuress  and proclaimed bi-sexual, and Luke (Owen Wilson), an all-around jokester.On the first night in the mansion, Eleanor and Theo hear thundering sounds in the walls, but pass it off as a problem in the plumbing.
Rather than going for subtle chills or all-out shocks like in House on Haunted Hill, Jan De Bont prefers to rely everything on the special effects, which really are rather unconvincing, particularly the statues that come to life and the CGI ghosts.It even manages to get worse.
But everything gets positively ridiculous in the last ten minutes, as we find out evil ghosts like to play hide-and-seek and smash things up real good.The blame should fall on director Jan De Bont and writer David Self.
It's a pity that Lili Taylor's performance, which was decent at first, turned to borderline camp by the finale.With nary a true scare in sight, The Haunting should best be seen by those who are scared easily or special effects fans.
Pretty Darn Bad. For movie fans who have never heard of the book (Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House") and have never seen the 1963 Robert Wise production with Julie Harris, this remake will seem pretty darn bad.For those of us who have, it is just plain awful.Bad acting (what was Neeson thinking?), goofy computer enhancements, and a further move away from Jackson's story doom this remake.Do yourself a favor and rent the original movie.
The Haunting is a film that boasts a really creepy house, good effects work and sound work, a cast that seems to believe that everything around them is real and that house.
There are genuinely creepy moments in the film and I liked the way the ghosts manifested themselves in sheets, curtains and the house itself.
Together the group explore Hill House and their own insecurities and finally face off the evil that inhabits with hair-raising results .Mindless and average film is packed with thrills, intrigue, suspense, horror and lots of interminable screams with no sense.
Hauntingly Bad. The Haunting is yet another bad horror remake with phony overdone special effects and a big cast of on screen favorites and has no redeeming qualities whatsoever except maybe for the cinematography.Yes remakes aren't all bad but remakes directed by Jion Da Bont definitely are.I suppose that the A-List actors (Liam Neeson,Catherine Zeta Jones,Owen Wilson)are there to distract us from the boring plot,ridiculous special effects, and terrible attempts at scaring it's audience however this is a movie not a tabloid magazine we don't care whose in it we care about the characters and story two things this film missed.The storyline is like taking the classic novel The Haunting Of Hill House and ripping out four chapters and then using whatever's left for the film it is so boring and a lot of it is unexplained.The characters are pretty thin and while the acting is good you don't really care about any of the characters at all.Lily Taylor gives a horrendous performance and sounds like she's 8 years old when delivering her lines not to mention what a horrible screamer she is.Lily Taylor isn't made for the horror genre at all.The ghosts are stupid and cheesy, they look like a bunch of Casper The Friendly Ghost's and the ghost of Hugh Cain looks like a fat guy dressed as the grim reaper for Halloween with a smoke machine.There is this creature on the roof of one of the rooms that is a giant purple mouth and it's not even funny unintentionally just plain sad.The house is pretty and well designed that is probably the only positive thing about this movie it looks nice but that doesn't save it from it's brutal everything else.I can honestly say i felt like i was wasting my time watching The Haunting on TV for no price so I would've been even more pi$$ed if I had paid to see it but luckily it was on Scream Channel.Overall The Haunting is a boring remake that tries to overwhelm you with bad special effects, a poor attempt at horror..
This remake of the sixties classic of the same name has unfortunately been somewhat slated by critics, although I feel it's better than most people seem to think it is.The location work is stunning and the set design has clearly had a lot of work put into it.Liam Neeson, Owen Wilson and Catherine Zeta Jones all perform their parts quite well, but Lili Taylor is not as good as she should be.
Also, she seems to say "Oh No" in exactly the same tone of voice every time she sees something frightening, although to be fair this is as much the fault of the script as it is hers.Towards the end the atmosphere is slightly diluted by such things as having the beds and statues spring to life which makes these scenes much less frightening than they could be.In spite of all this, this movie has a certain something that regardless of it's faults, makes me want to watch it again and again, and ultimately you can't ask much more from a film than that..
This is one of the best and beautiful horror films that I've seen and I'm sure others have one way or another retained the images that are so eerie yet majestic in a sense because of one, we have this marvelous setting, the elaborately mystical house to begin with ...and because of careful direction along with characters that are goodness, not stoned as prevalent in today's standards, there is a genuine and yes, scary feeling you could walk away from when watching the film.
The elements of the house and the characters are in perfect symbiosis...you keep your eyes open because the perspective of every character that enters in each floor and room are in a way, extensions of each other...what a classic way of enjoying films that don't rely on convoluted plots and/or reading the psyche of the enemy as if its mind is stretched to a 100 ft.
I thought it was all right, though I haven't read the book or watched the older version of this.I read other people's comments, and most of them rated for this movie for only two or even one star.
The house and settings are great to look at but most of the effort on making the film has gone into over-the-top computer generated effects and zombie looking actors, while the script makes no sense at all.
The original movie ( dated 19??)did not show any "monster" , it just SUGGESTED scary "things" , .This version however shows every aspect of a "sick minded ghost" , including unnecessary special effects .
The "mystery " ,as presented in the original movie , was the most scary part : one simply did not know what was causing the weird things that happened.
I didn't find the movie too scary, but it was spooky at some parts.Dr. David Marrow (Liam Neeson) wants to perform experiments using human guinea pigs to learn about human fear.
The scariest thing about "The Haunting" is that somebody spent that much money on such a bad movie.The sets, costumes, and special effects were worthy of the best Spielberg or Lucas could offer, but they're wasted on a Mystery Science Theater 3000 script.
Though I have never been scared at the movies I still enjoy the suspense and mystery of a well done "Scary Movie".The Haunting fits that bill very well.The acting is good, though I would say that Lili Taylor's acting makes the movie.
But all the actors did a good job and I'm pleased to see such main stream leading actors playing equal roles.The set is very well conceived and rich in detail which always helps the depth of a movie.Having not seen the original movie, I see this movie as a stand alone story worth every minute spent watching it..
This is by far the scariest movie I have ever seen.Yes,I scare easily-but this film wasn't just scary,it was multiple-heart-attack-terrifying!!
The effects were great,and the cast led by Lily Taylor and Liam Neeson was amazing.A wonderful change from classless teen slashers,this bone-chilling remake is superb..
This version of The Haunting isn't the best scary movie that I've ever seen, but there are enough genuinely hair-raising moments in the film to make it worth watching.
This is just a putrid pile of puss of a movie and I would think you would be better off in a dentist chair than sitting at home watching this film.I was sitting around a few years back watching some bad horror movie and realized that I had not seen a really frightening movie in a long time.
In fact, my wife and I spent most of the time in the theatre laughing very loudly at the horrible plot, the inane dialogue, the misplaced special effects, and the absolutely horrid acting by Lili Taylor.
She acted the way a little kid would on the playground if they were playing The Haunting.By far, the thing that ticked me off the most in the movie was the menacing sets.
In movies, special effects are nice editions, but they need a chocolate center to cover.Now, if the IMDb editors haven't cut out my analogy, if the Haunting was an M&M, it would be all coating.
The actors can't save the movie either: Liam Neeson is top, but the two girls (especially Lily Taylor gets on your nerves after a while)are just average.The set of Hill House is nice, and the rooms in there are pretty impressive but without convincing story-who cares?
The sets (the mansion), the powerful and dramatic bass noise and the great special special effects were all a lot of fun to watch and hear.That's the good news.
The bad news is that the story is stupid, the picture too reddish at times, and Catherine Zeta-Jones' character saying "God" as an explanation over 20 times was very annoying, just to give one example.If I can mute out Jones and ignore some of the other characters, this might be a movie to re-consider purchasing because of that awesome house and room- rocking sound effects..
True, the movie may not be as scary and spooky as the previews made it out to be, but the plot was interesting, and the house was beautiful.
10/10 If you like The Haunting try: House on Haunted Hill, The Others, The Haunting (1967), Scary Movie 2.
To all horror movie lovers, to see a couple of times, attentionaly and bearing in mind that some bad reviews must not influence the final appreciation of a fantastic movie.The Best: The actors, the special effects, sound, art direction, sceneries, photography, directing, the majority of the script, after all : THE MOVIEThe Worst: Saying nothing would be stretching things too much, but my only complaint goes to the non inclusion of images of the house's past: construction, deaths and probably if there were more characters trapped in the house would be interesting.As almost everyone should know this movie was based upon the novel by Shirley Jackson The Haunting Of Hill House', and the following 1963 Robert Wise's movie with the same title.
Back in 1963, Robert Wise, director of West Side Story propose us a visit to hill house resulting in one of the scariest horror movies driven and acted well by someone who knows what is doing.
Both movies are good and scary, but Jan De Bont's is incomparably better.For more than one century that the frightful and sinister Hill House stands alone and abandoned or so it seems.
Intrigued by the house's storied past, Dr. David Marrow (Liam Neeson) draws some people to the house Theo (Catherine Zeta-Jones), Nell (Lili Taylor), Luke (Owen Wilson), for an apparently innocent experience.
At first they believe that the story is some kind of a fairy tale but as soon as this secrets are revealed by apparitions to Nell, she realizes that it is not that fairy tale but a haunted story of terror, slavery and death until the very revelation in the end.The movie is mainly focused on Lili Taylor's character Nell which drives her character's acting remarkably well, although the other main character's acting are very good indeed but it is clear for everyone that the acting' that steals the show is hill house itself.
Some time ago before 2000 Oscar ceremony I read a comment that if this movie was not nominated at least for special effects, sound, photography, set design and sound design I will be haunted', I just have to say that I totally agree.
In my 18 years of existence, I never saw an audience so scared in a theater.The Haunting is starring very good actors and actresses: Liam Neeson(The Phantom Menace), Catherine Zeta Jones(The Mask of Zorro) and Lily Taylor.
The effects are very good, but they aren't very scary or likely in the boundaries of true haunted houses.Lili Taylor's performance takes back stage to Catherine Zeta-Jones which is quite the opposite of the original and does obviously impair the movie's likeability.
One of the best haunted house movies ever?
I found this remake of the classic psychological-horror film "The Haunting" good.
I like this remake of The Haunting better than I like Robert Wise's 1963 version of the film.
He draws a few participants, including Eleanor, Theo (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Luke (Owen Wilson), to a huge old mansion--more like a palace--called "Hill House".
He invents a story based on the true one (per the film's world) about the history of Hill House and plants the juiciest details with Luke, along with an instruction to keep quiet about it lest he scare Theo and Eleanor.
Sequences such as Eleanor and Theo running to each other as they experience strange sounds and something trying to enter their rooms are almost identical to the original, with de Bont taking great care to block infamous shots so that they're the same as the beloved Wise film.
Compared to the original I thought the plot had a greater meaning, and was more carefully plotted, since in the original, the main character Eleanore might of just been crazy all along, and that seems like an excuse to not think of a good ending.I would give it a 10 out of 10, especially considering the CGI was pretty good for a film made in 1999..
This is a good scary movie, but I just want to know if The Mansion is for real and does anyone have a link to information on it.
Maybe its the way about changing the feeling of the original The Haunting into a festival of special effects that puts this film in a bad light but saying that the film doesn't scare you is just not true.
The actors do their best and the one is better than the other but what I liked the most was the way the camera showed the house as a haunted and scary place where not one person would dare to live.
it looked like it might be, and the haunting of Hill House certainly is a very creepy novel- but this film is just special effects wizardry and thats about all.
If you liked the original, imagine a version of the story with special effects worthy of Ray Harryhausen.
It's been a long time since I've seen a good spooky movie about ghosts and haunted houses.
If you want to see digital wizardry used more effectively to create scary situations and images, look at The Frighteners, a film that was not outstanding, but was certainly better than The Haunting.
The most effective horror films are much more subtle than The Haunting.
The original Haunting is one of the very best of the genre, with a cast that effectively fits the story.
If you've read Shirley Jackson's story, "The Haunting of Hill House", you'll probably like the 1963 film, "The Haunting", fine.
It's mysterious, creepy and scary but also Beautiful, I don't know what we want more from a horror movie?
On a side note; someone should make a movie adaptation of it as well :) Also if you like the story from The Haunting, you should also check out "The Legend Of Hell House (1973) and The Uninvited (1944)".
This is a movie I've watched many times.Solid acting, atmospheric set, great location, deceit, terrific sound effects Catherine Zeta Jones.
It was missing almost everything, but I do have to admit the acting and the house weren't too bad and there were a couple parts that I actually thought were good about the movie, but on a scale between 1 and 10 it would never get higher than a 1, even if it was extremely entertaining..
Other cast members are equally unconvincing:  Catherine Zeta-Jones plays a schizophrenic role apparently cut from 23 different personae, none of them believable, and Lili Taylor's entire assignment is to look scared, which she only occasionally manages.If you want a good scare, read Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, on which the film is purportedly, though unrecognizably, based.
I already had a lot of respect for the original as a neat little 60's horror flick but this movie made it look even better in comparison.
It always amazes me why Hollywood thinks that it can make movies that are better than the original screen classics...(for example, Hitchcock's "Psycho")...this film went no where fast and its use of special effects...an awful insult to Shirley Jackson and Robert Wise and the rest of the crew of the original film!!!!
Nothing is good in this movie, except for some of the decorations in the "haunted" house.
I like a good scary movie.