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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]