The Haunting
(UK/US, 1963, 112 min., b/w)
7:30 p.m. Page Hall, UAlbany downtown campus, 135 Western Ave., Albany
Listed first in a list of
the “11 Scariest Horror Movies of All Time” by director Martin Scorsese
in the Daily Beast, October 28, 2009
Ranked #13 of the “25 Best
Horror Films of All Time” by the critics
of The Guardian (UK), October 22, 2010
Steven Spielberg regards The Haunting as one of the “seminal
films” of his youth and reportedly told director Robert Wise that it was “the
scariest film ever made.” – Judy Sloane
in Film Review, June 1995
Between his phenomenally sunny musical successes West Side Story (1961) and The Sound of Music (1965), director
Robert Wise found time to make this brooding, low-key shocker, based on the
novel The Haunting of Hill House by
Shirley Jackson. The material seemed to free up Wise’s baser talents: The off-kilter, black-and-white photography
goes a long way in intensifying the production’s minimal special effects, and
the actors uniformly overplay their parts, giving the film a streamlined
momentum it might have lacked otherwise. Though the story’s lesbian subtext was
toned down for the film, the sleek Claire Bloom injects some much-needed sexual
tension into the proceedings; the film is less about the group’s battle against
poltergeists than about the inner struggle between the virginal Eleanor Lance
(Julie Harris) and her conflicting desires. Jackson’s story would be adapted
for the screen again, in 1999’s sub-par The
Haunting. – Michael Hastings, All
Movie Guide
