Review: The Haunting
Based upon Shirley Jackson's novel The Haunting of Hill House and a loose remake of the 1963 film adaptation called The Haunting, Jan de Bont's The Haunting is a triumph of set design, sound and special effects. Despite the combination of glamorous headliners Liam Neeson and Catherine Zeta-Jones (both coming off summer smashes) and indie favorites Lili Taylor and Owen Wilson (Bottle Rocket), the star of the film -- as with most de Bont films -- is not a who but a what: in this case, it is Hill House.
Hill House is, as one character so amusingly puts it, "very Charles Foster Kane meets The Munsters." Ornate to the point of exaggeration, it is a house of intricate arches, carvings, friezes, columns, marble floors, high ceilings, oversized doors, and rooms that occasionally startle with their whimsy -- one room is a cross between a hall of mirrors and a merry-go-round while another has books as stepping stones over a rectangular, water-filled space. Designed by Eugenio Zanetti, Hill House is both temple and tomb, a place to run to and away from. And certainly it is a place where secrets are buried.
To uncover the house's sins, four humans are gathered to serve as Hill House's antagonists. One is Dr. David Marrow (Neeson), who lures insomniacs Nell (Taylor), Theo (Zeta-Jones) and Luke (Wilson) to be research subjects in order to pinpoint the psychological link of their insomnia. In truth, Marrow is conducting an experiment on the dynamics of fear. So he isolates himself and his three subjects -- no one leaves the house, there is no means of communicating with the outside world and the housekeepers will lock the gates before they depart the estate every evening.
Once the trio settles down, Marrow shares the story of Hill House's former occupant. A certain Hugh Crane, whose Dorian Gray-ish portrait looms over the grand staircase, built the house to be filled with children. But all children born to him and his wife die and when his wife dies not too long after, Crane becomes a recluse, building more and more rooms for the children he would had had.
The tale manifests itself most strongly in Nell, who has just lost a mother she has sacrificed most of her life to care for. She imagines hearing a child's voice beckoning her. Or is it real? Are those ghostly figures shaping the curtains? What about the inexplicable drops in temperature and the fortified slamming against the heavy doors of their rooms? And the changing expressions of the carvings in Nell's room? The easygoing Luke and the flamboyantly bisexual bohemian Theo believe it may just be Nell's imaginings, perhaps even her own doings so that she will be the center of attention; Marrow thinks her simply self-delusional. But Nell believes she was brought to Hill House for a reason and she means to stay until she discovers the house's truths.
What hampers The Haunting is its often laughable script. Written by David Self, the screenplay is ridden with cliched inanity. The denouement is particularly silly and no one, not even the hopefully grave and prodigiously gifted Taylor, can make them palatable. Look, de Bont can never be accused of balancing his style with substance but there must be some characterization in the humans to compare with the depth of the inanimate objects that dominate his film. It cannot just be men and women thrown to a speeding ship or a twister or a vivified house.
His best film, Speed, managed to make you care for its characters -- that's what made their situation more gripping. It was also his most simple film -- no padding, no showing off. The Haunting, on the other hand, is congested with unnecessary scenes. Ultimately, it fails to truly chill or thrill -- it only degenerates into the ridiculous.
The more interesting experiment is conducted by Taylor, who (un)intentionally reprises her Household Saints performance and stirs in a little hysteria to shade it. How does a portrayal from a more complexly written film strike one in a more commercially inclined movie? Brave but quite out of place. Still, one has to commend Taylor for attempting to create a character from a caricature. The others just trade in on their individual brands of charisma, which are easily overwhelmed by the inadequate script and the overdone production.
The Haunting
Directed by: Jan de Bont
Written by: David Self; based on the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
Starring: Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Owen Wilson, Lili Taylor, Bruce Dern, Marian Seldes, Todd Field, Virginia Madsen, Michael Cavanaugh, Tom Irwin, M.C. Gainey
