The Haunting starts with Eleanor Vance, Nell for short, receiving a phone call telling her to take a look at an advert in a paper. An advert which is seeking people who suffer from sleeping disorders to take part in some research conducted by Dr. David Marrow (Liam Neeson) as well as paying $900 a week she gets a roof over her head for free. Since Nell has just been chucked out of her flat & has no money this doesn't sound such a bad idea & gives Marrow a call. Nell is instructed to go to a huge Gothic cross between a castle & stately home 'Hill House' which in reality is called Harlaxton Manor & is located in England, once there she meets up with another test subject named Theo (Catherine Zeta-Jones), they talk about Theo's fetching thigh high boots for a bit & explore the House & eventually stumble upon the third & final volunteer, Luke Sanderson (Owen Wilson). Then as if by magic Dr. Marrow himself makes an appearance along with a couple of assistants, Mary Lambetta (Alix Koromzay) & Todd Hackett (Todd Field). That night Mary suffers an accident & is taken to the hospital by Todd & strange things begin to happen, banging at doors, whispering noises & an overall feeling of unease. The house seems to be effecting Nell more than anyone else, it seems to be trying to tell her something, something about it's dark past that Nell can perhaps put right but there are evil forces at work that don't like house-guests...
The big, no wait sorry at $80,000,000 massive budget remake of The Haunting (1963) was co-executive produced , along with an uncredited Steven Spielberg, & directed by Jan de Bont & I actually found it a reasonably entertaining way to pass an hour & fifty odd minutes. The script credited to David Self based on the novel 'The Haunting of Hill House' by Shirley Jackson had a re-write done on it by script doctor Michael Tolkin & maybe the reason it's a bit of a lightweight mess is because two separate writers worked on it at different times, maybe. The characters are dull & unoriginal with virtually no development at all, I didn't care about anyone except Zeta-Jones & even then only because she's a bit of a looker... The ghost story itself is weak, big bad ghost wants to kill everyone & generally be evil while one character has a sort of sixth sense to know what's going on while the others don't. It's all rather predictable, yawn. The Haunting is at it's best at the beginning when it relies on noises, spooky goings on & an air of mystery but unfortunately The Haunting then descends into a succession of CGI ghosts & special effects which are not scary in the slightest, from this point it's downhill all the way to the obligatory happy ending. On a positive note it moves along at a fair pace, it has a few decent sequences & it kept me entertained for it's duration. The one area where The Haunting does excel is with it's production design credited to Eugenio Zanetti which is both a wonderful asset but at the same time a problem. While the film undeniably looks sumptuous with some truly fantastic & grandiose sets which create a certain atmosphere I couldn't stop thinking that this was indeed a film I was watching, something very man-made, it all looks very fake & overblown. Technically The Haunting is top-notch & very polished throughout. There is no violence or gore besides a quick bloodless decapitation, this is family friendly horror all the way. The acting is pretty bad by all involved, Neeson looks embarrassed, Wilson is a crap actor whatever he's in & The Haunting's only saving grace is the delicious Zeta-Jones & her thigh high boots... The Haunting is a passable time waster of a film, there's nothing deep or meaningful here but it kept me quiet for a couple of hours. Everyone seems to hate it but I think it's just about worth a watch, definitely not the worst horror film I've seen but definitely not the best either.
The big, no wait sorry at $80,000,000 massive budget remake of The Haunting (1963) was co-executive produced , along with an uncredited Steven Spielberg, & directed by Jan de Bont & I actually found it a reasonably entertaining way to pass an hour & fifty odd minutes. The script credited to David Self based on the novel 'The Haunting of Hill House' by Shirley Jackson had a re-write done on it by script doctor Michael Tolkin & maybe the reason it's a bit of a lightweight mess is because two separate writers worked on it at different times, maybe. The characters are dull & unoriginal with virtually no development at all, I didn't care about anyone except Zeta-Jones & even then only because she's a bit of a looker... The ghost story itself is weak, big bad ghost wants to kill everyone & generally be evil while one character has a sort of sixth sense to know what's going on while the others don't. It's all rather predictable, yawn. The Haunting is at it's best at the beginning when it relies on noises, spooky goings on & an air of mystery but unfortunately The Haunting then descends into a succession of CGI ghosts & special effects which are not scary in the slightest, from this point it's downhill all the way to the obligatory happy ending. On a positive note it moves along at a fair pace, it has a few decent sequences & it kept me entertained for it's duration. The one area where The Haunting does excel is with it's production design credited to Eugenio Zanetti which is both a wonderful asset but at the same time a problem. While the film undeniably looks sumptuous with some truly fantastic & grandiose sets which create a certain atmosphere I couldn't stop thinking that this was indeed a film I was watching, something very man-made, it all looks very fake & overblown. Technically The Haunting is top-notch & very polished throughout. There is no violence or gore besides a quick bloodless decapitation, this is family friendly horror all the way. The acting is pretty bad by all involved, Neeson looks embarrassed, Wilson is a crap actor whatever he's in & The Haunting's only saving grace is the delicious Zeta-Jones & her thigh high boots... The Haunting is a passable time waster of a film, there's nothing deep or meaningful here but it kept me quiet for a couple of hours. Everyone seems to hate it but I think it's just about worth a watch, definitely not the worst horror film I've seen but definitely not the best either.