The Haunting (1963)

Based on Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House, this is a visually resonant film in the true horror style of the late ’50s. Although shot in 1963, it is in black and white, yet this does little to hamper the visual appeal of the film. Rather, it enhances the feeling of creepiness garnered by the story.

"It was an evil house from the beginning... a house that was born bad!"

The story is a simple enough one; Dr Markway wants to study the paranormal and calls together six research people from various callings to spend a week in the most haunted house in New England. We then walk the darkened halls with Eleanor, the most timid of the visitors to Hill House, as she finds freedom for the first time in her adult life. Constantly battling her conscious mind and her adult terrors, she makes friends with the others (of whom only two more showed up). As the nights and days progress, Eleanor is selected ever more frequently as the target for the house’s unquiet spirits until Dr Markway’s wife arrives, sparking the final desperate conclusion.

The most unfortunate part of the story is the last half, culminating in a rather lacklustre and inexplicable conclusion in which the lead character of Eleanor is pursued helplessly by the haunted house without real purpose. There are allusions to her past life with her mother and similarities between her and other young women who have fallen victim to the house, but it just isn’t enough to justify her being singled out. The Jan de Bont remake of a couple of years ago did a better job of concluding the story, I thought, and naturally the special effects were much better (but it was still way lamer than this first version). But that’s the thing; in this first version there aren’t any elaborate special effects used, rather music and camera angles are used to create a formless tension that does slowly build throughout the film.

Director Robert Wise has utilised some very bizarre camera angles and lighting effects to create the sense of eeriness about the house and has done so extremely well. The film looks spectacular in its framing of shots, balance of sets and character placement and, as mentioned, the black and white does add to the paranormal atmosphere. When we consider that not a lot of directors were using such techniques back in 1963, this shows his talent for experimenting with the medium to attain the most feeling possible from each scene. As a modern horror vehicle it falls a little flat, but as a film that smoulders slowly in its intensity and builds tension upon tension, it works very successfully. Just for that rather droll ending replete with cheesy explanations and hypotheses from the central characters.

40 this year and looking superb. The exquisite cinematography makes this film worth watching on its own, but the transfer has been pulled off just as successfully. The image is the teensiest bit short of razor sharp and is dense with antique detail in nearly every shot. The house is well packed with furniture and oddities, yet nothing is confused by the missing colour palette. The shadows are a little deep, but this is rather common in black and white films of the era. Blacks do look natural though and whites are fairly clean.

There are always going to be film artefacts in a film this age, yet happily they aren’t too bad. Some of the outdoor shots contain far more than the interiors, but there’s never anything too disruptive. I found they actually contributed a little to the dated feeling of the house so maybe you could think of it that way. There are some instances of shimmering (the stairwell at 18:22-28) and aliasing is horrid in Dr Markway’s jacket whenever he’s wearing the thing (which is most of the film). There’s an inexplicable bump at 52:35-36 that I’m putting down to a poltergeist at work. On that subject of bumping, the hand-held cameras employed by Wise work effectively in aiding the overall claustrophobia of the house’s darkened corridors.

In a film this age we shouldn’t expect much and what we get here is, not surprisingly, mono. The dialogue is well spoken throughout, though it and Eleanor’s internal monologues are both a shade lower than the complete soundscape. There are a couple of accents in here that are easily understood and the echoing of Eleanor’s thoughts isn’t too bad, if a little irritating.

Sound effects come in much louder than everything else, particularly as the house is trying to get to the unfortunate inhabitants. It’s much louder, though I couldn’t work out if this was deliberate or not as volume would easily fit into the scenario of the horrible noises.

There are a few nice little inclusions here to keep us busy. Firstly, I’ll mention the audio commentary. This is a sedate and affectionate affair delivered by three original cast members, plus the director and the screenwriter Nelson Gidding. At first I thought everyone was just polite and giving each other time to speak, but then I realised they were repeating each other without comment. So, I came to the conclusion that it has been pieced together from single viewings. When Claire Bloom enters the film, she enters the commentary as well and this is the clincher. Her voice has an awful static running behind it that is very distracting. This is so unfortunate and sours what is a well spoken audio commentary with some genuinely interesting facts and figures and a bit of neat trivia thrown in here and there.

However, next up we have the trailer which has been given the 2.35:1/16:9 treatment very nicely. It’s a tiny bit shaky in points, but counters this with some cool old copy: ‘You may not believe in ghosts, but you cannot deny terror!’ Unless the film isn’t that scary of course...

A stills gallery follows and runs like a short film for 5:04 minutes. This holds some real treasures with original artwork, posters, articles, antiques, original press kit and culture of the day. We can’t fast forward or rewind, but the pause and zoom work well, particularly for the ESP articles. What’s also interesting is they include an old list of original film titles they looked at before deciding on The Haunting. My favourites: Tremolo! and The Unheard Of. 38 images all up and a unique look back in time.

This is visually remarkable as a film and to have survived 40 years and still look so good is an achievement. The story builds well to the conclusion, though this may leave you a little deflated, as it did me. However, it’s a good piece and well acted for the most part (but for the cheesy explanations at the end) with enough unique extras thrown in to sweeten the deal. It’s perhaps not as well explained as the recent remake, but it’s not hard to see from where that later version drew its visual inspiration. This looks great and I recommend it to anyone wanting a better than average and splatter-free old school horror film or anyone wanting to see a film that was well ahead of its time.