# Haunting, The (1999)

### reviewed by
Steve Rhodes

    THE HAUNTING
    A film review by Steve Rhodes
    Copyright 1999 Steve Rhodes
    RATING (0 TO ****):  *

THE HAUNTING stars a large gothic mansion. With eerie old paintings, large human-like sculptures and creepy corridors, the house looks remarkably like Disneyland's Haunted Mansion. The main difference in the two edifices is that Disneyland's is comically frightening, whereas THE HAUNTING's is neither comical nor frightening.

Over-the-top action director Jon de Bont relegates the human stars to minor roles. Since all of their performances are embarrassing, this is perhaps to their advantage. Ironically, de Bont's claim to fame is SPEED. Most of THE HAUNTING appears to be on a quite different drug, Valium. The tedium is more likely to bore you to death than scare you with its expensive special effects. Only in the outlandish last part does the pacing pick up.

The plot for the movie, which is a remake, concerns a deceptive scientist, Dr. Jeffrey Marrow (Liam Neeson), who lures guests to the house on the pretense of doing sleep research on insomniacs. Actually, he's conducting an experiment on the effects of mass hysteria.

The guinea pigs include Theodora (Catherine Zeta-Jones), a glamorous woman who flaunts her bisexuality for no particular purpose other than its minimal shock value, Eleanor Lance (Lili Taylor), a sensitive woman who has spent 11 years caring for her dying mother, and Luke Sannerson (Owen Wilson), a pretty guy who acts like a spaced-out surfer dude.

As the story slowly advances, the house displays some of its charms. In canonical horror movie fashion, doors come alive and spirits move about. Most of the time, however, the movie relies on lots of low base rumbling. These sounds scare the wits out of the cast, but they, of course, are being paid millions to act afraid. The effects on audiences are likely to be profoundly muted.

The movie works only if you can ignore how serious the participants are taking it and assume it must be a parody. The problem with this approach is that it's just not funny.

"This is so twisted, seriously twisted," Theodora says. No Theodora, it isn't, and therein lies the problem. The film is a lame retread of a hundred other similar horror movies, only the budget is larger.

Maybe de Bont should have attempted something more challenging, say a shot-for-shot reconstruction of Gus Van Sant's PSYCHO?

THE HAUNTING runs a long 2:05. It is rated PG-13 for intense horror sequences and would be acceptabe for kids 12 and up.

Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com

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