The Haunting
by Jan de Bont
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Bruce Dern, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Liam Neeson, Lili Taylor, Owen WilsonDirector: Jan de Bont
Brand: Universal Studios
Producer: Jan de Bont
Producer: Colin Wilson
Producer: Donna Roth
Producer: Marty P. Ewing
Producer: Samuel Z. Arkoff
Writer: David Self
Writer: Shirley Jackson
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: AC-3, Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Special Edition, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 113 minutes
Published: 1999-11-01
DVD Release Date: 1999-11-23
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Dreamworks Video
Movie Reviews of The Haunting
Movie Review: Be haunted or be entertained!
Summary: 5 Stars
Either way you're having a good time watching this movie. I was more entertained than haunted watching this movie, which is hard to do either way. Two simple facts that know you're making a right choice for this movie. #1: the acting is good, and in this movie, it has highly underrated stars such as Lili Taylor, and Catherine Zeta-Jones. #2: The plot makes sense, and entertains. It may seem like a bad choice at first, but once you watch it a second time, it really kicks in on your entertainment ratings.
Nell Vance (Lili Taylor) is a fairly simple woman neglected by her family, after her mother dies. When she has no where to go, she takes a roll in an experiment that Dr. Marrow (Liam Neeson) is doing for people with Insomnia, but it pays really good money. Taking a job where all you have to do is don't sleep; sounds pretty simple right? Something seems strange, yet interesting about the location where the experiment is being held, at the Hill House. Though it's strange that someone would abandon such a neat place, weird things seem to go on as the occupants get used to it. Theo (Catherine Zeta-Jones), and Nell hear rigorous banging sounds in their rooms through the night. Things get cold with an explanation, and out of no where, the Harpsichord tightens a string by itself, and snaps nearly cutting Dr. Marrows assisstants eye. What's even worse is that something is coming after Nell. She can hear voices in her room, but what are they trying to tell her? Maybe she got more of a job then she bargained for.
The acting in this movie was great, epecially by Lili Taylor. She was just great. She gives a kind of uneasy feeling about the house the way she potrayed her part as Nell. Catherine Zeta-Jones as Theo too. Her and Owen Wilson as Luke added the comedy to the movie as the two modern gripers. All in all, not the kind of movie you'd expect. Some may not find it scary at all. I didn't really. I found it more of a great thriller. I actually found the trailer more terrifying.
Movies such as Ghost Ship and The Haunting are way too actiony to be scary. They do have their scary and haunting moments, but are really more of thrillers and suspensful than anything else. That's what's good about them, though. They come out trying to be something, and end up being something different, and in a lot better way than expected. Like I've been saying, one thing that really saved this movie was the acting. It's very rare any movie these days has any good acting, or else it's all overdone. By the star studded cast, you go in expecting something and get exactly what you desired from the cast. Love that Liam Neeson, and Lili Taylor. They are the best!
As for the affects, their better than a good many others in the nineties, and give you the illusion that they're not fake, but just barely. It's the plot that really grabs you, and Highclere Castle as the location was gorgeous. I fell in love with the set itself when it wasn't coming to life. And I must say, as an avid music lover, I can't help but notice the gorgeous music throughout the whole thing. It has it's ups and downs, but in the end, delivers well.
Summary of The Haunting
HAUNTING - DVD MovieSuffering from the extreme bad luck of being released at the same time as the low-budget The Blair Witch Project, this adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House attempts to update Shirley Jackson's psychologically terrifying ghost story to the era of big-budget, computerized special effects. Does it work? Well, let's just say that showing isn't exactly the same as telling. A prime example of bloated studio filmmaking, The Haunting telegraphs all its frights so blatantly that it forsakes any of Jackson's subtle horrors for the remedial scares of a clunky carnival ride. The story remains basically the same, with four people called to an old mansion for experiments in the supernatural, but instead of getting inside the heads of its main characters (as the 1963 adaptation by Robert Wise did so well), Jan DeBont's film deserts character development for the huge, glorious set design provided by Eugenio Zanetti (Restoration). Thus, instead of a well-drawn story you get... a well-drawn house, one that four very talented and underutilized actors--Lili Taylor, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Liam Neeson, and Owen Wilson--wander around in endlessly (as Zeta-Jones puts it, the house is "sort of Charles Foster Kane meets the Munsters"). Taylor, as the hypersensitive Nell, is the unknowing lynchpin in the battle between good and bad ghosts and gets saddled with most of the expository dialogue of the mansion's gothic backstory. Zeta-Jones (showing some spark) and Neeson (showing none) are sadly reduced to providing reactionary shots of the film's disastrous climax, which mixes hapless new-age affirmations with computer-generated effects of ghosts and exploding windows, walls, doors, etc. For this haunted-house story, take a quick tour of the breathtaking rooms, but definitely don't stay the night. --Mark Englehart
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