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(More customer reviews)The story has, by now, been imitated endlessly. Four people on a haunted house just to study it. But this is just the premisse.
The great Robert Wise sets up the most perfect, most classic haunted-house film ever made. The screenplay is built on the principle that you don't have to see it (the gore, the blood, etc.) to feel the fear. So, this is one of those great films where the tension is constructed upon the things you hear... the things you know are there.
In the pre-CGI era, you really had to create something out of what you had. So, Mr. Wise had a great script (years ahead of its time), great characters, great actors, a great cameraman, and settings that are a wow!
This is what makes this film so much better than any other (not to mention its remake - who clearly goes for the predictable cheap-trick CGI effects).
The story is told in the most perfect classic form. From beginning to end, you follow the story in the most careful pace. Beat by beat. From the prologue to the conclusion, the story is peerlessly told.
The characters and actors are great to watch: Julie Harris is the perfect troubled woman haunted by inner ghosts, while Theodora (the beautiful Claire Bloom) is the perfect icy clairvoyant who may or may not be a lesbian (everything is constructed with such taste...). Richard Johnson is great as the Doctor who must keep control of the experiment. Russ Tamblyn is also great as the non-believer who's in just for the adventure. As we will discover, all of them have weak points the house will explore. So it is possible to say that this is one film where the set (in this case the house itself) is one character just like the others.
The house has personality. It's not that unbelievable-monumental-lifeless-overdone-cathedral we see in the remake. This one is more realistic. We all know (and are fascinated by) houses like this one. It has style, visual integrity, proportion and it also puts into the film a nice touch of claustrophobia. As long as the characters are there, they are at its mercy. This "house character" is always present. Trying to get in. Banging at the walls and doors, trying to make itself graphically visible through the shots...
...This is where we get to the camera work - certainly one of the best ever made. In a house so rich with character, the distorted wide-angle lenses (let's not forget that Wise worked with Orson Welles) add much to the final effect. Corridors, statues and other objects are always there to remind you the house is present. They actually keep surprising the characters as if they were saying "we are here". This is why this film is so much superior than its sequel: you don't have to see the statues move... for you know they do when you are not there. In fact, this film constructs a state where you know the things that happen when you don't see them happen. That's pure film magic.
I wonder why nobody does films like this any more. Why do they always go now for the CGI obviousness...
I just love the wide-angle lens that smoothly move through the rooms... the time we are allowed to see those beautiful sets. and all the uncontrolled fear that invades the characters. The soundtrack is another great element. The film is constructed in an almost silence (which is very confortable at the beginning). So much that the noises made by the hauntings are almost unbearable when the things get rough.
This is one of those films that were meant to be seen ONLY in widescreen, for the compositions inside the shots make great use of it (in fact I never saw it in a Pan&Scan version - I cannot imagine how awfull it must be). This DVD edition has a great commentary audio track by the actors and director but lacks any kind of documentary about how it was made (which I'd love to see). But we can't have it all...
If (like me), you love the genre, you will love this film, which is a one-of-a-kind effectively constructed cinematic work. Just don't watch it alone... in the dark... in the night...
Click Here to see more reviews about: The Haunting (1963)
A group is introduced to the supernatural through a 90-year old New England haunted house. Be prepared for hair-raising results in this classic horror film!
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