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You know, going through some of my past reviews, I rarely talk about directors. This is one movie that demands the director be given tons of credit - Wise himself is practically the star of this movie. Shirley Jackson's novel "The Haunting of Hill House" was a book entirely about mood - an ominous, foreboding air very difficult to pull off on film. Shooting in black-and-white and with a crew of respected but relatively unknown actors, Wise accomplished this SPLENDIDLY, shooting at odd angles, giving the camera a voyeuristic eye to its cast, and making the house into a living being. With a fraction of the special effects, Wise turns in a movie that is effectively 10,000 times as a creepy as the slick (and utterly forgettable) 1999 Jan De Bont film of the same name, which also culled from the same source material.
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"The Haunting" was one of the first movies to truly feature the science of ghost phenomena (at least as best as the phenomena was known at the time of its release), and the film gives us plenty of happenings throughout its running time. Banging doors, voices, cold spots and the like are all given the royal theatrical treatment. For a movie damn near 50 years old, it's true that this movie won't leave you pissing yourself in terror; plenty of stuff that was terrifying to audiences back in the day are merely ho-hum to audiences of today used to the over-the-top gore and grue of Jigsaw. If you're like me, however, and like to place yourself in the situations of horror movie protagonists, you'll find plenty to like here with its slow burning build and interesting characters.
Which brings me to yet another example of something I've been harping on recently - this is definitely a movie that is superior to its source novel. Jackson's novel is full of woebegotten dialogue and has what is, in my humble opinion, a very unsatisfying conclusion. While the Nelson Gidding screenplay also has somewhat suspect spoken word at times, it's toned down and delivered in shorter bursts. The central arc that the Eleanor character goes through - both repulsed and flattered at the attention she gets from not only Theodora, but also the ghosts in the house - is played out to perfection, serving as a fascinating undercurrent to the ghost action. This dynamic, interestingly enough, wasn't a factor in the novel. Lastly, the climax that the movie builds to is INFINITELY stronger than the very weak denounment that Jackson gives us. In fact, I'll go even further - it's "Twilight Zone" worthy. Awesome, awesome stuff.
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