Celebrating “The Haunting”: A masterpiece of horror cinema.
Robert Wise's "The Haunting" is perhaps the greatest horror film ever made, undiminished after more than 60 years.
This week is the sixty-second anniversary of the release of The Haunting, Robert Wise’s seminal film that has emerged as one of the scariest and best-loved horror movies of all time. Upon its premiere on September 18, 1963 The Haunting was only a marginal success, with audiences somewhat lukewarm, but the effect the film has had on the horror genre since then is unmistakable. Big directors like Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese have praised the film as an important influence on them. Countless pop culture lists have enumerated The Haunting as one of the scariest, or at least spookiest, pictures ever made. In my own experience as a horror writer—yes, I used to be one, if you can believe it—it’s difficult to find a colleague who doesn’t love it or mark it as a milestone. The film was a major influence on my own work, being one of the inspirations for my 2015 novel Doppelgänger. It remains one of my all time favorite movies.
Based on the classic 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, the premise of the film revolves around a gloomy haunted house located in the remotest part of New England imaginable. An opening narration by one of the main characters, Dr. Markway (Richard Johnson), establishes that the house was “cursed” shortly after its construction in 1873 by the premature death of the wife of the house’s builder, Hugh Crain, just before she was supposed to see the house. Years later Hugh’s spinster daughter Abigail lives and grows old in Hill House, and after her caretaker hangs herself on the premises, the place’s reputation for spookiness precedes it. Markway, a parapsychologist, proposes to study the house with a hand-picked crew of assistants. Chief among them are Theo (Claire Bloom), who is rumored to be telepathic, and the shy, psychologically fragile Eleanor Lance (Julie Harris). When Eleanor gets to the house the terrifying manifestations seem to focus on her. But is it really supernatural, or is Eleanor simply going insane?
