Yar, you be here: The Haunting > Customer Reviews

The Haunting Customer Reviews (7 - 9 of 37 Reviews)

Hey! I got an idea! Let's take a great book and make it stupid!!!
One review says that this book had the misfortune of being released in the same year as The Blair Witch Project. That's a misnomer since a successful horror movie usually means more income for the rest of the horror movies in the theaters. A movie that stars Liam Neeson, Owen Wilson, Catherine Zeta Jones and Lily Taylor has no excuse for repelling audiences. No, this movie had the misfortune of Jan De Bont in the director's chair.

I normally don't compare movies to books. It's a gut wrenching experience and despite common wisdom, sometimes the movie is just as good and even better than the book (The Godfather is a prime example of the latter). Even if a movie has very little respect for the source material it can still stand on it's own merits (Starship Troopers.) However, this movie has committed a crime so heinous as to warrent the direst condemnation.

It shows the ghosts.

That might seem like a minor point, but under the guise of "updating" the source material Jan De Bont completely ignored what made the source material so compelling in the first place. Shirley Jackson lets the tension build and build because she never intended to resolve it with some easy explanation. By the end of the book, you still don't know if the house is really haunted but it doesn't matter because her protagonist is scary enough (in her own passive aggressive spiteful way). Jan De Bont, seen in the featurette patting himself on the back for "updating the movie", turns the house into a Disneyland ride. It's like if someone took Superman and went "ok this is good but instead of flying and having powers, let's make him not fly or possess super strength and why don't we have him trying to make it as a Broadway star instead of as a superhero". Maybe Jan De Bont can direct The Catcher in the Rye with a Holden Caulfield that doesn't talk much, but is full of saccharine good wishes when he does talk.

This movie had the production values, the actors and the source material. It could have been a classic like the original. Instead it was a mess. Maybe you can blame the budget. After all, with that much money the temptation to make moving eagle statues would be too much, but even with all that money they couldn't erase the taint of De Bont.

Read the book. Watch the original. Or watching Kubrick's The Shining (which is truer to the Jackson book than this movie ironically)

The Haunting (1999)
Director: Jan de Bont
Cast: Lili Taylor, Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Owen Wilson, Bruce Dern, Marian Seldes, Alix Koromzay, Todd Field, Virginia Madsen.
Running Time: 113 minutes
Rated PG-13 for intense horror sequences and some language.

Director Jan De Bont, whose oeuvre includes such other empty exercises as "Twister," "Speed," and "Speed 2," has joined the short list of directors who have gotten so caught up with the special effects aspect of filmmaking that they have forgetten that a potent script, captivating acting, and superb cinematography is what truly makes a good picture, no matter the genre. After her mother's death, Eleanor (Lili Taylor) is desperate to get over her feelings of despair. Research Scientist Dr. Marrow (Liam Neeson) is searching for subjects to participate in a study on sleep disorder, and Eleanor is a perfect candidate. Accepted, she travels to Hill House, the site of an infamous massacre years ago, and meets up with the other subjects of the experiment Theo (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Luke (Owen Wilson). After the usual introductions are done, Dr. Marrow briefs everyone about what they are doing and the purpose of the experiment. After an accident nearly ruins the experiment, Dr. Marrow decides to carry on. That night, strange banging noises haunt Eleanor and Theo as they try to sleep. The next day, she begins to see and experience strange events in the house. Trying to convince Theo and Luke that Dr. Marrow isn't interested in sleep deprivation doesn't work, but it brings Eleanor close to a secret that even Dr. Marrow didn't know about and that could bring the house down around them.

Taylor stands out in a dull cast of popular professionals--Liam Neeson is wasted here, and looks mildly embarrassed, Owen Wilson is a ridiculously bad actor who apparently knows how to hit his marks and has some sort of flair for comedy, but he drawls and squeaks his annoying lines to the detriment of the story, and Catherine Zeta-Jones is voluptuous and luscious and is a complete nothing here. When stacked (quit giggling!) up against the much more elegant Claire Bloom from the original, she becomes even more of a piece of flavorless eye candy. Jones prances about in one bizarre costume after another and the few hints she gives that she's bisexual and interested in Nell are so pointless and watered down that the edginess of that subplot in the original seems to be even more uneasy and profound than before. Not content with cluttering up the story with CGI effects (virtually all of which are telegraphed by the previews), this version also completely bastardizes the story (i.e., Shirley Jackson's). Instead of a straightforward paranormal investigation, we get a study of fear masquerading as a study of sleep disorders . The investigator's wife, who plays such an important part in the novel as a New Age flake who wants to communicate with the spirits, and in the '63 movie as a total skeptic, is completely absent in this version. The psychological tensions of the original book and film are gutted in favor of too-literal CGI FX for the cast to yell at, plus a cause-and-effect karma that make this more of a remake of "Poltergeist." De Bont succeeds in creating a horror film full of eye-candy and lurring moments, yet fails in executing what should have been a much more interesting, terrifying, and effective haunted house thriller.

Haunted By Computer Graphics
A visual funhouse, "The Haunting" fails to generate any real scares or much of a plot. In other words, Jan de Bont went heavy on the flash and polish and light on any actual story.

The Hill House itself is a wonder to look at. The widescreen version of this film lends well to this. From intricately detailed cherubs and wall patterns to visually fun apparitions, this film has it all. Though much of the ghosts and their work are pretty fake-looking, they do not take away from the film.

The real shortfall of this flick is the weak story that tries desparately to keep up with the caliber of actors displaying it. Lili Taylor portrays the central figure of the story, which is fairly stock and rehashed from an older version of this film. Liam Neeson plays the parapsychologist trying to study the aspects of fear in humans. Catherine Zeta-Jones is wonderful as eye-candy queen, Theo, and Owen Wilson phones one in as Luke, the fourth primary character.

In short, if you want a scary, suspenseful flick full of horror, look elsewhere. If you like computerized ghosts and plenty of visuals, this flick is for you. I give it three stars for the visuals and one star for the story. Not recommended as a purchase, but a rental should satisfy you.

Previous Page

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Next Page