the tagline for this film is : " some houses are just born bad " . 
so i didn't expect too much from this . 
but i had preserved a little spark of ope as i entered the theatre . 
i thought : liam neeson , cathrine zeta jones and jan de bont . 
i thought , mabe it will be fun ? 
and in fact the beginning was rather intriguing . 
but by the end of it i thought : why liam neeson and cathrine zeta jones , jan de bont ? . 
these great actors are basically helpless with this muddled mess that defies any rationality . 
here is the story : in the monstrously over-decorated mansion known as hill house , visitors are tricked by an unknown doctor ( liam neeson ) into being guinea pigs in a fright experiment under the guise of an insomnia investigation . 
among them is a sophisticated bisexual ( cathrine zeta jones ) , a cynical dope ( owen wilson ) and a gentle and emotional lady ( lily taylor ) . 
actually , the doctor is researching the " primordial fear reaction " and intends to plant disturbing ideas in his subjects and watch what happens . 
but he gets unexpected help from the house itself . 
it rumbles , hums and belches forth remarkable sights . 
portals become veiny stained-glass eyeballs . 
a fireplace guarded by stone lions gapes like a sinister mouth . 
filmy cherubic spirits take shape under sheets and billowy curtains . 
but the computerized spooketeria rarely feels real , placing an emotional wall between audience and screen . 
the second half of the film is basically about the main heroine running back and forth from the sinister lamps and evil furniture . 
is that exciting or what ? 
the worst thing about it is that it didn't have to be bad . 
it's based on a great book , ``the haunting of hill house , '' by shirley jackson . 
a 1963 adaptation of the book was scary and intelligent . 
it played with the greatest fears of our sub conscience . 
 " the blair witch project " , that cost less than an old car , managed to shock and terrify the audiences from their senses . 
and with a $70 mill . 
budget , de bont and screenwriter david self make hash out of a perfectly lovely piece of terror . 
de bont has a style of filmmaking so out of line with the material that it is , in itself , frightening . 
he is the master of the extravagant special effect and the big visual adrenaline rush . 
but why give him a more serious material ? 
in the end " haunting " will only haunt its fledgling studio ( dream works skg ) and de bont's career as a director . 
yet it wouldn't be fair to say that everything is bad . 
the effects are truly impressive and the house is wonderfully decorated -- beautiful , mysterious , magical and spooky . 
but this is where the good things end . 
the music is blaring , the floors moving , the ceiling morphing and the pictures on the walls screaming -- and all of this , every second , every moment of screen time , is absolutely without life . 
it's nothing more than a special effects-extravaganza ; visually impressive , but intellectually hollow thriller that simply doesn't engage . 
at first you do not know what's going on . 
is this part of the experiment ? 
are these hallucinations ? 
projections of the subconscience ? 
paranoia ? 
but in the end it shows out that this is actually happening . 
the house is actually possessed . 
it is at that point when all your hopes for a good entertainment disappears out of the window . 
for ever , i sat in anticipation for a decent climax and that's what i got ? 
i believe hichock once said that " it's better to wait for a climax , than to see one " . 
this may be true , and it might actually work , but there is only one problem -- jan de bont is not hichock and the things that he shows are not scary , only stupid . 
they are impossible to take seriously . 
any paralells that you might have heard before , linking this picture to kubrick's " the shining " , are absolutely baseless . 
 " shining " had class , style , story , acting , but most of all talent and originality . 
 " haunting " has only special effects and art direction to boast of . 
and those elements alone are not enough to make it a good film . 
casting good actors for small , pale parts only makes things worse . 
but i guess that no matter what i or other critics say or write , most of you will see this film anyway , even if the tagline would say : " some films are just born stupid " .