Hello guys and ghouls, it's October, and you know what that means right? Besides cooler weather it means the glorious return of Halloween Classics. So, I thought I'd start this year's series off with a true classic, one that has aged wonderfully and remains scary to this day. Based off of a Shirley Jackson joint, it's 1963's "The Haunting." That's right folks, not that shitty remake from the nineties, this is the real deal here, in glorious black and white, and not starring a Wilson brother.
For those of you not in the know, "The Haunting" is about a famed anthropologist, Dr. Markway, who is obsessed with the supernatural, and as a scientific experiment he decides to lock himself and a few carefully chosen people inside a haunted house and record what happens. Now I know this initially sounds mental, but his motivations are actually quite scientific, which becomes clearer as the movie progresses. Part of his theory is that things like ghosts, cold spots, evil houses and whatnot, can all be explained scientifically ... eventually, we just don't know how to yet. And as he puts it, "When people believed the earth was flat, the idea of a round world scared them silly. Then they found out how the round world works. It's the same with the world of the supernatural. Until we know how it works, we'll continue to carry around this unnecessary burden of fear." Anyone out there who knows me, will know just from this bit here that this movie is right up my alley. A haunted house movie where a character approaches it with the motivation of scientific inquiry? Be still my heart.
Anyway, the film starts with Markway having finally found the perfect house to suit his needs, his research has led him straight to Hill House. A house that was born bad, as the movie so eloquently puts it. In fact, the first thing I noticed about this film, besides the great cinematography, was how good the writing is. It just drips with Shirley Jackson's style, and I don't know this for sure, not having read "The Haunting of Hill House," but it definitely feels like many lines were taken straight from Jackson's words, and this is a good thing. Hill House has a dark history, with many strange happenings and strange deaths, and Markway decides to use it for his experiment. So, he carefully selects a group of people to take part in the experiment, people specifically chosen to be sensitive to the supernatural. Interestingly, only three people show up, Eleanor, a very sheltered woman who's spent her entire life taking care of her recently deceased mother; Theodora, a total bitch who has seriously accurate premonitions; and Luke, the douchy guy who will someday inherit Hill House. So really only two of the invited participants show up, which right from the gate is a bad sign.
From here you can probably guess the plot, not the specifics maybe, but you know that this house is haunted, so you know that freaky stuff starts happening. And as it all escalates the characters start to lose their resolve and the infighting and bickering starts. It's classic in it's progression, but what would a haunted house be without this eh? What's important here is the specifics, the importance of what happens is based on who the characters are and what they've been through. I won't go into details since that's the whole point of watching this movie, and I don't want to ruin anything for those of you who haven't seen this. So, I guess the question is: Is it any good? Does it still hold up to this day?
The answer is a big hell yes. "The Haunting" has now become the main banner in my stand against the shitty modern film making that churns out unscary movies. You know what I mean, movies that rely purely on shitty cgi and excessive violence to be "scary." This movie is refreshingly scary, and it does it's job without relying on excessive special effects or any real onscreen violence. "The Haunting" uses all of the other film making tricks in its arsenal to make a truly chilling and terrifying experience, and it is truly a breath of fresh air in the staleness that the horror/thriller genre has become. First up, of course is the great writing and the wonderful performances. The actors start to build up the tension from the get go, and the interpersonal tensions get churning far before anything starts bumping in the night (I can't believe I just wrote that sentence with a straight face). To get a great example of this, see when Eleanor and Theodora first meet. Theo's bitchiness is just barely contained, but still on display, subtly seething beneath the surface. And it's obvious, before we're even told, that she knows more than she should. Or see Dr. Markway's expression when Eleanor tells him exactly how her mother died. It's subtle, you might even miss it if you aren't paying attention. But suddenly he may be more cold and calculating than he lets on, and it makes us question why he's actually interested in Eleanor, or how far he'll go for his precious experiment. It's all wonderful, and builds up to a very satisfying climax, which could have existed without the terror (But luckily it doesn't).
Then there's the cinematography and editing. People don't seem to realize how important this technical junk is to a movie, particularly a scary one. The compositions on display in "The Haunting" are just delicious, yes I said "delicious," and if you don't agree from just seeing the images I've posted around here then there's something wrong with you. Also, it should be noted, whoever made the sets for this movie should have won an oscar, no joke. Everything about this house just looks off, there's a line early on about there being no normal angles to anything, and doors being off center, and stuff like that. And the set designers really followed through with that promise. Everything just looks wrong, like a house built wrong, and you might not realize it while watching, but images like this, images that are just a bit off, go a long way towards unsettling you, which gets you nice and open to being scared shitless by the sound design.
And now we're on to what's truly well known about this movie. The sounds will scare you. I don't care who you are. Here, let's use me as an example, most "scary" movies don't really scare me, too many of them are just sad or funny. Particularly, you know those scenes that are constructed just to make you jump? Those usually make me laugh to be honest, not always of course, but often they build it up so stupidly and obviously that once it gets there it just cracks me up. Well let me tell you, "The Haunting" made me jump, and do you know what did it? A fucking knocking sound ... yeah. I don't even mind admitting that because it's so well done here that it will probably scare you too. This movie will scare you with just sounds.
This is what makes this movie such a treasure, it makes silly things scary. I've always said that one of the things that makes Stephen King a great author is that he can make anything scary, even stupid shit. Fucking hedge animals coming to life and running around? Yeah he made that truly terrifying. "The Haunting" does the same thing, it makes simple things terrifying. It makes bumps in the night scary, it makes voices scary, it makes statues scary, it makes a rickety spiral staircase completely fucking terrifying. The climax of the movie scared me more than I can remember a movie doing in a long long time, and for that "The Haunting" wins. You owe it to yourself to watch this one if you haven't, I can't recommend it enough. Just look at the stills, this is a classic. Is that a glowing enough recommendation for you? Get to it.
"An evil old house, the kind some people call haunted, is like an undiscovered country waiting to be explored. Hill House had stood for ninety years and might stand for ninety more. Silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there... walked alone."
-Dr. John Markway
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