The Haunting (1963)

Tagline: “You may not believe in ghosts, but you cannot deny terror.”

UK Running Time: 114 minutes

Film Quality: 5/5
Gore Content: 0/5
Entertainment Value: 5/5
Originality: 4/5

Introduction

After reading a review of Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ director Robert Wise picked up the rights to turn it into film. Owing MGM one more movie as part of his contract, he put the idea to them to make a haunted house movie for the 60s. Nelson Gidding, with whom he had worked before, had already written a treatment by this time, coming to the conclusion that there was a certain ambiguity in the novel about whether or not the house was haunted. Add to that Wise’s desire to create a tribute to horror auteur Val Lewton and you have a recipe for the archetypal ‘less is more’ fright flick.

In a nutshell

A parapsychologist recruits a hand-picked team to take part in a serious, scientific investigation of Hill House, a building with an interesting history that is believed to be haunted. Strange things begin to happen during the investigation, but is it a genuine haunting or is something else going on that could put all of their lives in danger.

So what’s good about it?

I’ve already hit on the fact that Wise takes the ‘less is more’ approach to film making, going against expectations by showing you absolutely nothing. He clearly loved the source material and his screenwriter picks up on the ‘is the house really haunted?’ concept and throws it over to the audience to make their own minds up. Nothing is quite as it seems and this is conveyed in several ways. First of all, as Dr Markway explains there are no right angles in the house so doors close by themselves. Secondly, nobody witnesses so much as a spoon bend so, is it all in their collective imagination? Thirdly, if you know you’re in a house with a reputation such as the one conjured up at Hill House and you stayed the night, would you not over-analyse each little bump and creak?

Key to this ambiguity is the characters, how they’re portrayed and how they interact with each other. The two key characters in this respect are Eleanor, the reclusive outsider who has never been able to shake off her poltergeist experience as a child, and Theodora the psychic. There’s tension between the two and is it just possible that the neuroses and supernatural associations of Eleanor may be inadvertently channelled outwards by Theo the psychic? Most of the genuinely frightening moments, particularly the ‘breathing door’ scene, take place when Markway and Luke are elsewhere so there is one theory. The dynamics of the group is superb with the scientist, the sceptic, the psychic and the one in denial of the supernatural.

The film plays very much into the psychological concept of the uncanny, things are strangely familiar but not quite right. When we hear the child’s scream and the banging on the door, the camera closes in on a section of wallpaper (left) and the lighting to give the appearance of facial features. Haven’t we all done that? Seen faces in wooden doors, clouds and wallpaper and been slightly freaked out by it. Then there’s the mysterious Mrs Sanderson whose repeated warnings and expressionless face give the appearance of an automaton alongside the statues and busts that tower over our characters, imposing themselves whilst giving whatever haunts Hill House an almost omnipresent quality.

The way the film is shot is designed purely to disorientate. Many shots are filmed at an angle, we see characters leave the rooms from the right and enter another room from the left so we don’t get a clear idea of the geography of the house, we rarely get a sense of whether or not scenes take place during the day or at night so our concept of time is not necessarily linear. At some points the camera even imposes itself on the characters, at one point jarringly forcing itself upon Eleanor, making her lean over and nearly fall from a balcony wall. Some shots are shown in reverse and there’s the sensational scene (above, right) showing the ageing process of one of the historical characters from childhood to old age over a ten second period onscreen, filmed using overlaid images with an unnervingly surreal effect. Add to this the wonderful sound, many of the effects of which were played out to the actors during filming to get realistic responses and the overall effect is sinister beyond belief.

And what about the bad?

It would be wrong to pretend that the film was a massive hit when it came out. There were some reports of audience anger as they went to see a haunted house movie and came out of it without seeing anything. Of course this is missing the point entirely as it’s not what you see, it’s what you don’t see that scares you here and that point was also missed by the creators of the remake that stank out cinemas in the late 90s. However, other cinemagoers were terrified by the film, expecting a Hammer style atmosphere, colourful and slightly camp. There wasn’t a great deal of middle ground with critics, unsurprisingly given this polarised view from early 60s cinemagoers, giving it a mixed reception agreeing that it is cinematically wonderfully but too serious as a horror film. Perhaps audiences, or at least critics, weren’t quite ready for a serious exploration of our own deep rooted fears.

Any themes?

Madness. Is Eleanor (right) so traumatised by her past experiences with the poltergeist (only mentioned as an aside in the film, but her reason for being there) and her role as her mother’s carer and her subsequent death that Hill House tips her over the edge? One of the backstories of the house is that one of the characters dies whilst calling for help as her aid fools around next door, a situation very close to Eleanor’s own experiences, drawn out by either the spirits of Theo’s psychic abilities depending on your point of view. We discover from a wonderfully camp and chintzy scene early on that her home life is dull, she has no life of her own and longs for adventure and freedom. Finally given the room to let it all out, her anxieties consume her and this negative energy is picked up by psychic Theo and transferred to Markway and Luke.

There is also a lot to be said about what makes a house haunted. If you walk down a backstreet at night then chances are you’ll feel fine, if you were told a murder happened down that particular street the previous night you’d feel very differently about that walk. The same applies here, it raises the question about whether you can keep an open mind in a place where ‘terrible things’ have happened. As Markway puts it, if even one event was proved to be faked or flawed then all of the other evidence would be open to question. The fact that Luke is virtually converted into a believer is irrelevant, his initial scepticisim is mirrored by Markway’s urge to believe and by the end of the film they’ve met in the middle. Luke believes there’s something there whilst Markway believes he’s made a mistake in inviting a clearly unhinged woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Release history

The version released cinematically included a few additional scenes. The first showed the breakdown of Theo’s relationship with her lover, the second includes more inner thoughts from Eleanor on the way to the house whilst the third is a voiceover from Mrs Sanderson, replaced by that of Markway. All three are likely to have been replaced by Wise for reasons of characterisation. Theo’s relationship explicitly showed her sexuality, the film works far better with her lesbianism implied. Eleanor’s inner thoughts permeate the film regularly so toning it down at the start prevents it from becoming tiresome quickly and Markway is the authority figure at Hill House so should be the one delivering its history and introducing us to the house.

There was some opposition to the inclusion of an openly gay character, in fact this was one of, if not THE first mainstream film to feature a homosexual, female character. Perhaps it was this that persuaded Wise to remove that earlier scene for fear of censorship or overshadowing the film itself, however I think characterisation was the more likely reason.

Cultural Impact

It’s widely regarded as one of the best horror films of all time and a landmark of the genre. It has been remade, parodied (a wonderful pastiche appears in the most unlikely form of ‘Waxwork 2: Lost in Time’ with Bruce Campbell as the Markway character…a standout moment in the film!), referenced and acknowledged in countless other movies. Martin Scorses and Steven Spielberg in particular have championed the film and it was clearly an influence on Steven King and Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of ‘The Shining’.

It also brought Val Lewton’s low budget style of not revealing ‘the monster’ into the mainstream big budget horror movies, proving that just because you have the money to put the effects and the monstrous up there on screen doesn’t mean you have to. I can remember watching ‘Jeepers Creepers’ for the first time and for the first half of the film thinking what a refreshing change it was to see something so tense, to watch a film that doesn’t show the monster and cranks of the sense of dread. And then the feeling of utter disappointment as you see the monster and all of that heard work and atmosphere disappeared in an instant. THAT’s the legacy that ‘The Haunting’ has left behind and it’s great to see more films currently showing the same sort of restraint instead of splashing cheap looking CGI over the screen…yes, that’s ‘The Haunting’ remake summed up in a nutshell!

Stephen King and Steven Spielberg came together in the late 80s to produce a tv series based on Shirley Jackson’s novel but they couldn’t find a common ground. Spielberg wanted more action, King more restraint so the project was shelved with King eventually taking elements of that script and working it into the miniseries ‘Rose Red’. More recently, Netflix have announced an intention to adapt the novel into a series…we’ll just have to see how that develops.

Final Thoughts

I distinctly remember watching this as a 13 year old astounded that an old black and white film with no special effects to speak of could terrify me in such a way. I’d not seen a film like it, more used to the slasher films and ‘Poltergeist’ (no disrespect to that particular film, but it is FX heavy!) style horror that showed its hand right there on screen. In not showing what’s behind the haunting, it’s all in your head. Do you remember being scared of the dark when you were four? It wasn’t the dark, it was what might dwell within in that you couldn’t see…that’s the power of ‘The Haunting’.

You’ll like this if you enjoyed…

‘The Shining’, ‘The Conjuring’, ‘Session 9’, ‘The Changeling’