The Haunting

USA 1999

Reviewed by Kim Newman

Synopsis

Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.

Eleanor 'Nell' Vance devoted her life to the care of her recently deceased mother. One day a phone call draws her attention to an ad for volunteers for a study of insomnia. The study's supervisor Dr David Marrow is actually investigating fear and is assembling a small group of maladjusted adults to spend a week in Hill House. The reputedly haunted mansion was built in the 1870s by textiles tycoon Hugh Crain for the children he never had because of his wife's suicide.

At Hill House Nell meets sophisticated artist Theo and slacker Luke Sanderson, the other subjects of the experiment. After an accident involving a harpsichord drives Marrow's assistants away and a message of welcome is written in blood on a portrait, Nell becomes convinced the house is trying to communicate with her. She learns the ghosts are Hugh Crain and the many children he took out of his mills and murdered, but the others don't believe her. The subjects learn the nature of the experiment. Nell almost has a breakdown thanks to her persecution by the ghosts. The four try to escape the house, but the gates are chained and Luke is beheaded by a chimney flue. Nell stands up to the ghost of Hugh Crain - whom she realises is her great-great-great-grandfather - and forces him to leave earthbound limbo for hell. As she lies dying, her soul joins the departing spirits of the children whom she has freed from Crain's tyranny.

Review

Though director Jan De Bont must take the blame for The Haunting's over-elaborate visuals, unsuspenseful pace and mistimed scare scenes, David Self's dreadful script is the chief culprit in this botched remake of Robert Wise's 1963 film of Shirley Jackson's 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House. Every single change, update and 'improvement' is a gross mistake that undoes Jackson's careful tapestry of fear and melancholy. The substitution of a bogus sleep experiment for the original's psychic investigation skews The Haunting seriously from the start: Liam Neeson's Dr Marrow comes across as an unsympathetic semi-villain and the film has to scuttle down a false trail in suggesting that he's faking the ghostliness himself to prod his subjects into fear. (A rational pay-off would be as unthinkable in this context as a real ghost in a vintage Scooby-Doo episode.)

Although it's not crudely spelled out, the suggestion in the book and (to a lesser extent) in the first film is that Hill House is not haunted until Nell arrives. The remake, however, reconfigures the plot as a truly absurd mystery melodrama, with a mid-nineteenth-century baddie (a lookalike for the Planet of the Apes' Dr Zaius) who seems to have been half wicked Dickensian industrialist and half paedophile serial killer. The set-up here, with its three types of ghost, is so complex the film spends a lot more time having the luckless Lili Taylor as Nell explain it than it does being scary or insightful.

Like a lot of recent genre pictures, The Haunting is desperate to show how aware it is of its predecessors, co-opting bits from classic literary ghost stories by M. R. James, Oliver Onions and Wilkie Collins. This would be more appreciated if it weren't for the way the admittedly impressive gothic art direction (tormented cherubs in friezes, a revolving room like a giant music box, a fallen statue in a fountain, bedboards like cathedral frontages, and so on) keeps coming alive in unthreatening CGI to loom at the cast. Rushmore's co-writer Owen Wilson, who works in an irrelevant rant about the Teletubbies, is summarily decapitated, and perhaps escapes most easily: one suspects he was allowed to do his own dialogue, which is much sharper than everyone else's. Neeson and Zeta-Jones are just lost, concentrating on their looks at the expense of characterisation.

It's a shame that this should be independent mainstay Lili Taylor's first shot at carrying a major studio film (though she is criminally billed fourth). She is one of the few actresses working today who might have matched Julie Harris' reading of the typical Jackson heroine, timid and introspective but with a perverse streak of strength. Her introductory scene, which finds her at the mercy of her horrid sister and a truly appalling child, establishes Nell perfectly. Throughout Taylor struggles to make the lines work, but she is defeated by passages where she is repeatedly called upon to channel the plot explanations. The finale, which has her confronting the black cloud of Hugh Crain and departing beautifully to heaven surrounded by glowing children, is kitsch eschatology far beyond even the bathos of Ghost or the horror-comedy of The Frighteners. It plays plays distinctly less well than the afterlife of Kenny in South Park Bigger Longer & Uncut. In a season that also includes The Sixth Sense and The Blair Witch Project - both of which have no CGI effects and know a shout of 'Boo!' is only scary if it comes after a period of relative quiet - this bristling, attention-grabbing carnival funhouse of a picture hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell.

Credits

Producers
Susan Arnold
Donna Arkoff Roth
Colin Wilson
Screenplay
David Self
Based on the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
Director of Photography
Karl Walter Lindenlaub
Editor
Michael Kahn
Production Designer
Eugenio Zanetti
Music/Music Conductor
Jerry Goldsmith
©DreamWorks LLC
Production Companies
DreamWorks Pictures presents a Roth/Arnold production
Executive Producer
Jan De Bont
Associate Producer
Martin P. Ewing
Production Controller
Jim Turner
Production Co-ordinators
Noelle Chapin-Green
UK Crew:
Marilyn Clarke
Unit Production Manager
UK Crew:
Chris Kenny
Location Managers
Peter M. Tobyansen
UK Crew:
Christian McWilliams
Post-production
Executive:
Martin Cohen
Supervisor:
Erica Frauman
Co-ordinator:
Sven E.M. Fahlgren
Assistant Directors
Josh McLaglen
Michael Jonathan Moore
Rich T. Sickler
UK Crew:
Jacinta Hayne
Script Supervisor
Trudy Ramirez-Gyatso
Casting
Randi Hiller
ADR Voice:
Mickie McGowan
Camera Operators
P. Scott Sakamoto
UK Crew:
Colin Anderson
Gordon Hayman
Steadicam Operators
P. Scott Sakamoto
UK Crew:
Colin Anderson
Visual Effects
Supervisors:
Phil Tippett
Craig Hayes
Plate Supervisor:
Harry C. Fichter
Production Visual Effects Co-ordinator
Leslie Barnett
Special Visual Effects/Animation
Tippett Studio
Visual Effects Producer:
Jules Roman
Animation Supervisor:
Blair Clark
Art Director:
Paula Lucchesi
Compositing Supervisor:
Brennan Doyle
Head of R&D:
Doug Epps
Production Supervisor:
Alonzo Ruvalcaba
Plate Producer:
Ken Kokka
Lead Animator:
Petey König
Animators:
Simon Allen
Joe Henke
Eric Ingerson
Todd LaBonte
Randy Link
Matt Logue
Virginie Michel D'Annoville
Eric C. Reynolds
Thomas Schelesny
P. Kevin Scott
Robert Skiena
Jesse Sugarman
Robin Watts
Animation Set-up:
Aaron Holly
Kelly Lepkowsky
Jeff Raymond
Effects Animation Supervisor:
Eric Leven
Effects Animators:
Matt Baer
Matt Hightower
Michael A. Miller
Stephanie Modestowicz
Mike Perry
Tim Teramoto
Art R&D Lead:
Scott Souter
3D Paint Supervisor:
Belinda Van Valkenberg
Senior 3D Painter:
Joel Friesch
3D Modelling Supervisor:
Ease Owyeung
Senior 3D Modeller:
Merrick Cheney
3D Scanning Engineer:
Dan Rolinek
Compositing Sequence Leads:
Bill Eyler
Charles Granich
Jim McVay
Zoe Peck-Eyler
Jef Sargent
Compositors:
Alan Boucek
Bonjin Byun
Gimo Chanphianamvong
Whitney Eldridge
Colin Epstein
Matt Jacobs
D. Flint Klingler
John Kohn
Alfred Mürrle
Russ Sueyoshi
Ryan Todd
Guerdon Trueblood
Match Move Supervisor:
Michelle Johnson
Lead Match Move:
Chris Paizis
Roto Supervisor:
John Dunlap
Operations Manager:
Jeff Stringer
Lead Visual Effects Co-ordinator:
Molly Lynch
Visual Effects Co-ordinators:
Eva Sollberger
Alessandra De Souza
Christine Sugrue
CG Co-ordinator:
Marty Holthaus
Animation Manager:
Eve Sakellariou
Art Manager:
Sophie Leclerc
Compositing Manager:
Carol Corwin
Visual Effects Editor:
Kevin Rose-Williams
Software Development Manager:
Kimberly Allen
Production Management Programmers:
Brad Sturtevant
Roger Rohrbach
Film I/O Supervisor:
David Rosenthal
Camera Operator:
Darren Jones
Film I/O Manager:
Vicki Wong
Systems Manager:
Christian Rice
Additional Visual Effects/Animation
Industrial Light & Magic
Visual Effects Supervisor:
Scott Farrar
Associate Visual Effects Supervisor:
Patrick T. Myers
Visual Effects Producer:
Roni McKinley
Computer Graphics Supervisor:
Samir Hoon
Compositing Supervisor:
Dorne Huebler
Computer Graphics Artists:
Cathy Burrow
Mario Capellari
Kathy Davidson
Dean Foster
Andrew Hardaway
David Hisanaga
Keith Johnson
Brian LaFrance
Mohen Leo
David Manos Morris
Ken McGaugh
Sandy Ritts
Hans Uhlig
Creature Development Team:
Jean Bolte
Tony Hudson
Tim McLaughlin
Alyson Markell
Animators:
Marc Chu
David Latour
Visual Effects Editor:
John Bartle
Digital Colour Timing Supervisor:
Bruce Vecchitto
Film Scanning Supervisor:
Josh Pines
Additional CGI Effects
CIS
Special Effects
Co-ordinator:
John Frazier
Foreman:
David Amborn
Set Co-ordinator:
Jim Schwalm
Crew:
Michael Burke
Howard Byron Frazier
Tommy Frazier
Mark Gault
Bruce Hayes
Jim Jolley
Ralph Kerr
Ken Mieding
Martin Montoya
Joe Pancake
Francis Pennington
Paul Ryan
Harold Selig
Bob Stoker
James Thomas
Bryan Wohlers
Dana Wozniak
UK Crew Supervisor:
Martin Gutteridge
UK Crew Technician:
Jem Lovett
Supervising Effects
UK Crew:
Ricky Farns
John Morris
Model Maker
Ron Mendell
Puppeteers
Marc Irvin
Louis Kiss
Mike McCarty
Greg Nicotero
Brian Rae
Wayne Toth
David Wogh
Supervising Art Director
Tomás Voth
Art Directors
Martin Laing
Troy Sizemore
UK:
Jonathan Lee
Set Designers
Andrea Dopaso
Easton Michael Smith
William Hawkins
Luis Hoyos
Aric Lasher
Lori Rowbotham
Gerald Sullivan
Set Decorator
Cindy Carr
Portrait Artist
Gunnar Ahmer
Illustrators
Oliver Scholl
François Audouy
Mauro Borrelli
Matt Codd
James Hegedus
Pre-visualization Artist
Rpin Suwannath
Storyboard Artist
Robert Consing
Chief Sculptor
Fred Arbegast
Costume Designer
Ellen Mirojnick
Costume Supervisor
Deborah Hopper
Key Make-up Artist
Cindy Jane Williams
Make-up Artist
Amy Schmiederer
Special Make-up/Animatronic Effects
K.N.B. EFX Group, Inc
Supervisors:
Greg Nicotero
Howard Berger
Wayne Toth
Crew:
Al Lorenzana
Michael McCarty
Garrett Immel
Brian Rae
Brian Demski
Gino Crognale
David Wogh
Marc Irvin
Key Hairstylist
Judy Cory
Hairstylist
Karyn L. Huston
Titles/Opticals
Pacific Title Research
Orchestrations
Alexander Courage
Executive in Charge of Music
Todd Homme
Supervising Music Editor
Ken Hall
Music Editor
Darrell E. Hall
Score Recorders
Bruce Botnick
Robert Fernandez
Sound Design
Gary Rydstrom
Production Sound Mixers
David MacMillan
Sound Mixer, UK Crew
David John
Re-recording Mixers
Gary Rydstrom
Gary Summers
Re-recordist
Ronald G. Roumas
Mix Technicians
Jurgen Scharpf
Juan Peralta
Supervising Sound Editors
Frank Eulner
Ethan Van der Ryn
Dialogue Supervisor
Dianna Stirpe
Dialogue Editors
Jonathan Null
Karen Wilson
Sound Effects Editor
Teresa Eckton
ADR
Supervisor:
Larry Singer
Recordist:
Tami Treadwell
Mixer:
Robert Deschaine
Editor:
Denise Whiting
Foley
Supervisor:
Sandina Bailo-Lape
Artists:
Dennie Thorpe
Jana Vance
Recordist:
Frank Merel
Mixer:
Tony Eckert
Editor:
Susan Sanford
Stunt Co-ordinator
Tim Davison
Cast
Liam Neeson
Dr David Marrow
Catherine Zeta-Jones
Theo
Owen Wilson
Luke Sanderson
Lili Taylor
Eleanor 'Nell' Vance
Bruce Dern
Mr Dudley
Marian Seldes
Mrs Dudley
Alix Koromzay
Mary Lambetta
Todd Field
Todd Hackett
Virginia Madsen
Jane
Michael Cavanaugh
Dr Malcolm Keogh
Tom Irwin
Lou
Charles Gunning
Hugh Crain
Saul Priever
Ritchie
M.C. Gainey
large man
Hadley Eure
Carolyn Crain
Kadina Halliday
Rene Crain
Alessandra Benjamin
Karen Gregan
Brandon Jarrett
Mary McNeal
William Minkin
psych patients
Debi Derryberry
Jessica Evans
Sherry Lynn
Miles Marsico
Courtland Mead
Kelsey Mulrooney
Kyle McDougle
Hannah Swanson
children's voices
Certificate
12
Distributor
United International Pictures (UK) Ltd
10,146 feet
112 minutes 44 seconds
Dolby digital surround-EX/Digital DTS Sound/SDDS
In Colour
Prints by
Technicolor
Anamorphic [Panavision]
Last Updated: 20 Dec 2011