The Haunting (1963) by Robert Wise

Director: Robert Wise

Year: 1963

Country: USA

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Haunted House

Plot:

Arriving at a supposedly haunted mansion for an experiment on fear study, a group of strangers and their overseer are witnesses to an extraordinary amount of physical evidence that forces them to believe the house to be haunted, and they must find a way to get out of the building alive.

Review:

While this one does have some great work here, there are some troubling parts as well. There's a lot here that works with this one in dealing with the theory of the supernatural that runs through the film, as this one preys upon the concept of the victim's own imagination to play tricks on what's going on. The emphasis on her guilt and sensitivity, buoyed by the history of the house itself, makes this such a fun time with how the early supernatural scenes from the odd creaks and groans and disembodied voices heard throughout here but also in all the teasing and joking around that soon turn into actual haunting sequences as they explore the house all manage to give this one quite a healthy sense of fear here.

Meanwhile, its big haunting scenes are the main focus. The bedroom scenes here are absolutely chilling, as the utterly pounding footsteps echoing throughout the hallways into the room next-door where they begin scratching on the walls to an absolutely fevered pitch that then dies down just as quickly as it appeared, and a second scene where the girls are alone in the room overhearing the echoing footsteps return into the next-door room again with muffled conversations to the frightened girl prompt their own individual response to the situation before the truly classic hand-holding gag that makes this quite fun. As well, the big centerpiece sequence here is the encounter in the parlor where the pounding footsteps appear leading into the door to the hallway outside which leads to it pushing against the door from outside with enough force to push the wooden door in with quite a powerful display all in front of everyone which gives this as much as it does. That this is the lone haunting done in front of others and is such a thrilling and creative moment makes for quite a powerful scene as a whole.

The other big plus here is the actual house itself, which is quite spooky and an appropriate setting for the type of action portrayed, which is quite an impressive task and uses its setting to great effect. These are good enough to make this hold off the few minor flaws here, which come from the rather bland and drawn-out pace here, as while this one isn't boring it's way too long for how little action is present. The encounters are spaced out throughout here in such a big amount of time that it never really settles into a groove about how to play off the dreariness of the pace here. as well, there's also the fact that the films' psychological issues here are considerably downplayed into appearing so clumsy here that the inclusion is really troubling. Otherwise, this one works rather well overall.

Overview: ****/5

A tad overrated but still a great movie, this one manages to feature more than enough worthwhile and likable factors that are enough to hold this off over the few minor drawbacks featured throughout here. Those with an appreciation for this type of genre fare or who are fans of this era will have the most to enjoy with this one, while most others might want to heed caution.