The Haunting *** (1999, Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Owen Wilson, Lili Taylor, Bruce Dern) – Classic Movie Review 997

American movies fans forked out more than $100 million for director Jan de Bont’s daft but ingenious and amusing 1999 supernatural chiller. It’s the old, old haunted house story.

With no acting really required, Liam Neeson largely sleepwalks through his role as Dr David Marrow, the professor who welcomes three movie stereotypes to eerie Hill House for a ‘sleep disorder study’. They are the lovely, worldly-wise Theo (Catherine Zeta-Jones), the cynical, wise-cracking Luke (Owen Wilson) and the weird and over-sensitive Nell (Lili Taylor).

Soon, ghosts appear in a costly and impressive visual special-effects and set-designs bonanza that provides a fast-moving rollercoaster of shocks, scares and screams. Bruce Dern appears as the creepy Mr Dudley and Marian Seldes too as Mrs Dudley.

Neeson, Zeta-Jones and Wilson do their best to enliven a fun but trashy and sometimes sagging remake of Robert Wise’s polished 1963 original with Richard Johnson, Claire Bloom, Russ Tamblyn and Julie Harris. It’s a shame that it’s so scrappily handled in places this time, because it could have been a lot classier.

The Haunting’s story centres on a dark and disturbing homestead, Hill House, which was built 130 years ago by a textile baron for his wife and the children they would never have. Instead of the house being filled with happiness, it resounds with the tragic tale of how the couple came to leave the house. Now a group of people stays over in the eerie house.

You may expect a little bit more quality from director Jan de Bont, the maker of Speed and Twister, but the hokey film is always entertaining, keeps firing on enough cylinders and delivers a punchy climax.

David Self’s screenplay is based on Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House. Made by DreamWorks, so Steven Spielberg is one of the producers.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 997

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