# Haunting, The (1999)

### reviewed by
Dennis Schwartz

HAUNTING, THE (director: Jan de Bont; screenwriter: David Self, based on the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson; cinematographer: Caleb Deschanel; editor: Michael Kahn; cast: Lili Taylor (Nell), Liam Neeson (Dr. David Marrow), Catherine Zeta Jones (Theo), Owen Wilson (Luke), Alix Koromzay (Mary), Marian Seldes (Mrs. Dudley), Bruce Dern (Mr. Dudley); Runtime:112; 1999)

    Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

This one's a bomb. It's a total special effect film, sapping away what is human about the characters, while unsuccessfully putting the human characteristics into the haunted house. The house is the star of the film and the actors are the props. This insipid horror story has little to recommend it; it wasn't scary, or campy, or well acted, it was just unimaginative. The few thrills it offers, are all a result of special effects. This is a date film more than anything else.

The real horror it provided, was zapping Shirley Jackson's very literate psychological thriller. A far better film version, one that was actually thrilling, is the one done in 1963 by Robert Wise. The director of this film, Jan de Bont (Speed/Speed 2/ Twister), is not up to dealing with a psychological story and directing characters in a persuasive way, he is more into making silly theme movies that rely solely on special effects. The man just can't make a literate film.

A research test for volunteer insomniacs is advertised in the paper, as a psychologist, Dr, Marrow (Liam), is using that as a cover for his study of group fear. Unhappy with her lot in life, Nell (Taylor), a repressed and timid spinster who took care of her invalid mother until she recently died, finds out that her mother didn't even leave her the apartment. She seems relieved to get away from her unpleasant situation and do the experiment, and welcomes the chance to be living with other volunteers, even if they will live in the scary Hill House.

Theo (Zeta) is an extrovert, an attractive NYC artist, an insomniac who is bi-sexual, favoring lesbian relationships, causing her to have problems with her boyfriend and wanting to change her scene for awhile. Luke (Owen) is an insomniac, with a hyper personality and manic energy, who will comically walk around the schlock house among the griffins and huge hallways in his pajama bottoms and a baseball glove. Soon they will all experience strange phenomena, such as Nell's name written on the wall welcoming her home and telling her to leave or else, a moving flume, house breathing sounds, animated ghosts of murdered children and the ghost of the ogre who built the house, and one dramatic shot of the ogre's wife who committed suicide, as she is seen suspended from the ceiling by a rope around her neck. This house is haunted Hollywood style, as the Gothic house, which Theo describes as a cross between something Charles Foster Kane would build and the Munsters' house, becomes the central focus of the film and the insomniacs stay away trying to look afraid of what they are seeing. It's all hokum from beginning to end, and it is so poorly scripted, that tedium quickly sets in, leaving the film with no purpose except to be laughed at for how stupid it all is.

Since this thriller was never thrilling, it just went on to show off the stage set designs illustriously created by Eugenio Zanetti, all one could do was go from room to room and stare at the cherubs, the leaping skeletons, the elaborately built stairway collapsing, an animated hand of a ghost coming out of the fountain, and at the futile effort to make a Disney fantasy picture. The film concludes on a bland note, not even bothering to go after what the Liam character was supposed to be about, whether he was an egotistical scientist out for his own ends or a good guy trying to help science with useful knowledge. After the film exhausts itself with its fake horror show and we see the ghost of Hill house chasing after Nell, the film gets a few laughs it never intended to get, as it concludes as a show-off will, when he is so proud of his wealthy house, that he thinks he has really impressed you, and continues to show-and-tell long after one has lost interest. The laughs that were gleaned, are of the kind that do not bode well for the film, they are the laughs that come from those who know they have just seen a bad film.

    REVIEWED ON 8/21/2000     GRADE: D

Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"

    http://www.sover.net/~ozus

    ozus@sover.net

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