The Haunting (1963) Vs. The Haunting (1999)

The Haunting (1963)

Directed by: Robert Wise

Starring: Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, Russ Tamblyn, Rosalie Crutchley, Lois Maxwell, and Valentine Dyall

Genre: Horror / Psychological Thriller

Based on the Novel “The Haunting of Hill House” by Shirley Jackson

"Hill House ... had stood there for eighty years and might stand there for eighty more ... and whatever walked there, walked alone."

Following the plot of the 1959 novel, three people are invited to take part in a paranormal study with Dr. Markway (Richard Johnson) at a secluded mansion with a reputation called Hill House. Along for the adventure are Eleanor “Nell” Lance (Julie Harris), a woman with deep rooted insecurities who longs for acceptance; Theodora (Claire Bloom), an eccentric, sexually ambiguous, confident woman; and Luke Sanderson, a playboy who stands to inherit the house in the future. Theo and Nell were selected by Dr. Markway because they exhibited a history with the paranormal. Nell has had “poltergeist phenomenon” occur around her, or possibly because of her – it is hinted she has telekinetic powers. Theo is thought to have ESP, or at the very least to be incredibly perceptive. Luke is just along to make sure no harm comes to the property, and he seems fairly skeptical about any paranormal phenomenon that has occurred within the house. They soon discover that they are not alone in Hill House as strange and horrifying (for them) things begin to happen. It becomes clear that the house wants Nell, and is determined to have her. But is the house really haunted, or is Nell unknowingly making these things happen?

What I loved most about this movie was how true it stayed to the classic novel. The film opens with the same lines as the novel does, and ends with the same poetic lines. They kept most of the major unsettling moments from the novel and they translated well onto the screen. The pounding and writing on the walls, ghostly touching, etc. was all made believable. I also liked that they kept the lesbian subplot between Theo and Nell in the film, as well as keeping it as subtle as it was in the novel. (In the 1950s and ‘60s, homosexuality was still a very taboo topic, so anything dealing with it had to be subtle.) There are hints throughout the film that Theo has a thing for Nell, and she is very ambiguous about her personal love life. (Ex: she lives with a ‘partner’ whose gender is never specified in both the novel and the film)

However, the name changes seem unnecessary – in the novel Eleanor’s last name was Vance and the doctor’s last name was Montegue. This is more of a nitpicky detail than anything, though. Also, they changed the character of the doctor’s wife from a woman who thought she could communicate with the spirits of Hill House to a woman who was highly skeptical and even challenged the house’s ghostly phenomenon. Granted, the movie character was far less annoying than her novelized counterpart, but I would have preferred that they remained true to the story. She was a great antagonist to everyone involved in the study, including the doctor himself.

As far as the components of the film go – it was very well-done. The atmosphere was perfect – it gave off that creepy, claustrophobic vibe necessary for ghost stories to take root in the viewer. Yet at the same time, the sets were beautiful. The suspense element was a major factor in the success of this movie – we never actually see the ghosts that haunt Hill House, just hear them and see the aftermath of their antics. The viewer is always wondering what will happen next, if everything is really happening or if Nell is just crazy.

 The acting was pitch-perfect, each character brought to life as if they’d walked right out of the book. (Minus the changes in Mrs. Markway of course) Nell is hard to take in places. Her character can be very annoying. However, she isn’t meant to be likable. I felt sorry for her because she was so socially awkward and had never really had a mature, mutually respectful relationship with anyone. She was incredibly needy in her longing for a connection – trying to find one with Theo and with Dr. Markway. Julie Harris did a wonderful job depicting Nell’s socially awkward ways as well as her decent into madness without coming off as campy or cheesy. Claire Bloom was graceful and lovely as Theodora, but she could also be nasty when the scene called for it. Richard Johnson gave off a very Vincent Price-like air as Dr. Markway and Russ Tamblyn’s Luke was charming and playful, if a little greedy and self-involved. Each character was on screen as they were written in the novel, which is something hard to come by in book-to-film adaptations.

Overall: A definite classic film with great atmosphere, a few scares, and great acting. It is true to its source material and does the novel justice, bringing it to life on screen. Both this film and the novel are highly recommended.

8/10

The Haunting (1999)

Directed by: Jan de Bont

Starring: Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta Jones, Owen Wilson, Lili Taylor

Genre: Horror / Supernatural

Rated: PG-13

Loosely Based on the Novel “The Haunting of Hill House” by Shirley Jackson.

The plot is similar to that of this film’s [superior] predecessor: three people, Eleanor or “Nell” (Lili Taylor), Theo (Catherine Zeta Jones) and Luke (Owen Wilson) are invited to Hill House to participate in a study on insomnia conducted by Dr. Marrow (Liam Neeson). What they don’t know is that Dr. Marrow is employing the old “bait-and-switch” method – the patients think he’s studying their insomnia, but he’s really doing a study on fear – and Hill House definitely provides them with plenty of that. Upon the first night there, the banging noises begin, and events progressively intensify. Once again, it becomes clear that the house wants Nell, but for a reason far different from the original film. As Nell descends into madness, she believes that she must protect the ghosts of the house as she begins to unravel the mystery of why Hill House is haunted.

I remember seeing this film at about thirteen or fourteen, and thinking it was rather bland. Now, having a lot more movie knowledge and knowing that it was spawned from two far superior works, I’ve come to truly dislike it. The back-story of Hill House was completely changed from that of the novel and original film – the only similar element is the name of the man who built it. While in the novel and original film it was proposed that the house was just “born bad,” in this version there is a rather clichéd and ridiculous explanation for the haunting that trivialized the original ideas behind the story. The idea that it may also be in Nell’s mind or of her own creation is also dropped entirely, losing another aspect of depth that the original story had.

The dialogue was uninspired and barely varied from character to character. The only dialogue that remained the same in all three versions was Mrs. Dudley’s (housekeeper) speech about when she sets the meals on the table and how she will not stay after it begins to get dark – consequently the only decent lines in the film. Also, the characters have changed. Theo is now a blatant bisexual, who not only states this fact, but also flirts with both Nell and Luke. (The lesbian subplot raises its head, but is swept over and nearly forgotten by the end of the film.) Luke is no longer the handsome, charming, playboy heir, but just another hapless insomniac with a goofy demeanor. And what is with the constant changing of the doctor’s last name?

The doctor’s wife is no longer a character at all. She doesn’t exist in this reality. Instead she is replaced by two pointless characters - Mary and another assistant to the doctor – both of whom have maybe two to five minutes of wasted screen time. They were completely unnecessary to the plot and could have been left out altogether. Mary’s injury and the death of one of the main four characters seem to have been added for shock value, but were also unnecessary.

The acting in this is rather wooden considering the all-star cast. Liam Neeson and Catherine Zeta Jones have both been up for Oscars and have clearly proven themselves as incredibly talented. Owen Wilson has a great sense of humor and comedic timing – his is probably the most natural performance out of all of them as his character is similar to many others in his career. Lili Taylor’s performance is solid at first, but becomes a little campy as she gets more involved in the mystery behind Hill House. Catherine Zeta Jones exudes sex appeal and glamour, but she doesn’t really seem to care about her character, and there were times when it felt like Liam Neeson was wondering what the hell he was doing there.

The sets were nice, though a little over the top. Considering this was supposed to be a manor built in the 1800s, I find it hard to believe there would be a carousel-like ballroom floor and a hallway comprised of water, requiring stepping stones to cross. While these elements were beautiful, they were unrealistic to me and took away from the rest of the house, which was actually a very realistic portrayal of an 1800’s manor-style home.

This film is praised for its use of special effects, but I can only wonder why. Some of them were decent, but for the most part, they were made up of really bad CGI. Projected faces in pillows, obviously fake moving wooden carvings, and clearly computer generated smoky ghosts do not scare me – they are rather annoying. The effects were overdone and used way too frequently. I guess de Bont didn’t get the memo that sometimes less is more. Apparently, if you have a great sound system hooked up to your home television, the sound effects are amazing, but I haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing them, nor to I believe they could save this lack-luster, effects ridden effort.

Overall: This could have been a decent film. With today’s technology and the star-studded cast this should have been a lot better than what was delivered in the final product. Too much CGI and terrible writing downgrade this film from what it could have been.

4.5/10

Knock Knock (2007)

Directed by: Joseph Ariola

Starring: Nicole Abisinio, Chris Bashinelli, Kat Castaneda, Antonio Mastrantonio, Kim Taggart, Sal Sirchia, Joli Julianna, Lou Savarese, Stephanie Finochio

Genre: Horror/Slasher

Rated: Unrated

It was a boring night at home for me, so I cuddled in with some popcorn and the laptop, deciding to watch something off of the Netflix Instant Queue. I read the premise for this flick and though I figured it was probably low-budget cheese, I gave it a shot anyway.

The story follows a group of teenagers being killed off one by one in ways that are similar to their father’s professions. Sounds interesting, right? Sure, but the execution of the film made it barely watchable.

The acting was absolutely atrocious. I know bad acting is to be expected from low-budget, but damn. All of the actors were either incredibly wooden or over-acting. The kids were all blitz attacked so they didn’t have to try and act scared. Also there were some people with awkwardly noticeable accents varying from New York, to Boston, to sounding like rejects from The Sopranos. Awful.

Still, Oscar Winners couldn’t even save this drivel. The dialogue was terrible – it wouldn’t be believable no matter who said it or how it was said. The entire film was poorly written – it feels like this was a first draft that Ariola wrote up in one weekend and then ran with. The killer is supposed to be human, yet some of the kills are just ridiculous. The opening kill – which is supposed to catch the attention of the audience – was incredibly dull, with the killer just knocking on the door and disappearing whenever the victim answered it. This goes on for about six minutes before he punches through a solid door and grabs her by the throat. He kills another victim by stabbing the blunt end of a mop or broom handle through his stomach. Both seemed very far-fetched and ridiculous. This guy is not Jason Voorhees – he’s human, therefore he should not be able to do such things. It’s not scary, it’s just dumb.

The characters are unlikable – all of them. We have the cliché macho jock male, his head cheerleader “I think I’m all that” blonde girlfriend, the stoner, and then a bunch of bland forgettable characters ripe for the killing. I didn’t care about the “final girl” – they never gave me any reason to. Normally I’m always rooting for the girl in the final battle, but she wasn’t given a chance to fight back, and she had no personality to begin with. The whole long-lost grandfather storyline irritated me as well – even though he was the best character in the film. It was like the Ariola was thinking, “Well, they’re all on the chopping block anyway, who cares what they’re like?”

An example of bad writing is when the “Rico” story enters the plotline. All of a sudden, Grandpa Mike is asking around about a guy named Rico, who had been caught in a fire in his father’s funeral home, and then committed soon after. However, we never learn where he got this information, so the audience is left asking “Where the hell did this come from?” There are two characters named “Billy” – one male and the other female – as well as a completely unnecessary character in Cindy’s skanky older sister. Also, for the record, if your grown male son is sitting in his room playing with dolls that have pictures of the victims plastered to their faces, it is not touching, it’s creepy and a sign your son might be involved in the murders. Just a hint.

The wardrobe is pretty absurd too. The female cop is always wearing short skirts, high heels, and tops that either bare cleavage or are see-through. Somehow, I don’t really think a female detective who probably has to spend her days chasing perps and doing legwork would wear something as impractical as stilettos. Plus, police work is still considered very much a man’s world – a woman in that field would be trying to be taken seriously, not objectifying herself in the workplace. Also, in the flashback sequence, the guys in it are supposed to be from the late ‘70s to mid ‘80s, yet their clothes look like what high school kids wear today. One guy in the back had a giant afro, but that’s about the only thing to signify it was a different era.

The camera work on this film was very shoddy in places. There were shaky zoom-ins and zoom-outs, and there were places you can tell a hand-held was used because the camera shakes so much. It was a bit dizzying. I also felt like a pervert during Cindy’s shower sequence because of how the camera just lingered on her naked body as she lathers soap all over it. I don’t know if they were trying to create suspense here, but I felt like a creeper staring at her breasts for three minutes because the camera man couldn’t stop focusing on them. It was an obvious attempt at luring the young adolescent male audience and it was annoying.

You can tell the production values are low because of how poorly edited and retouched it was. Some of the dialogue was hard to hear from one person but completely fine from another – things like that can be touched up after filming has wrapped. They sell programs for it that can be installed on your home computer. Same with edits – there were a lot of cut-to-black spaces. I know college students who could put together a better film than this.

The one thing this film does have going for it – aside from the interesting premise – is the actual death sequences. I think most of the budget must have gone to the special effects because they were awesome. The deaths themselves were way too quick to have me scared at all, but the killer mutilated a few of the bodies afterward – some of which was cringe-worthy, even though the victim is dead. The intestines looked real and there was a lot of gore. I was pissed some of the more deserving characters were killed off-screen. I really wanted to see the cliché jock bite it.

Overall:

This film had no suspense whatsoever and very bland and unlikable characters. It’s very poorly written and acted. The only good thing about it is the special effects, but they do not make this worth watching. I’d recommend you skip this one.

3.5/10