THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. DreamWorks Pictures Director: Jan De Bont Writer: David Self, book by Shirley Jackson Cast: Liam Neeson, Lili Taylor, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Owen Wilson
Based on its trailers, "The Haunting" comes across as an antidote to "The Blair Witch Project," but here's a case in which the corrective is worse than the venom. Whereas the highly overrrated "Blair" flaunts its forbearance of special effects, tightly-written dialogue, and big-name performers, "The Haunting" resembles a glorified ride through a Coney Island spook ride as Donald Trump would have constructed it. If "The Blair Witch Project" suffers from a kind of reverse pretension--claiming a blessing from its avoidance of fancy pyrotechnics and seeking the most naturalistic adventure possible in a horror movie--"The Haunting" goes to the opposite extreme. Director Jan de Bont, known for the razzle he put into the exciting movie "Speed" and the subsequent dud "Twister," proves himself unable to break away from depending on dazzle to substitute for substance. Based on Shirley Jackson's novel "The Haunting of Hill House," which mercifully leaves the terror to the reader's imagination, the Dreamworks release relies almost completely on kitschy imagery, vapid dialogue, and an all-too-literal replica of purgatory to stimulate the fancy of moviegoers that still retain an smidgen of imagination in an age of visual overload.
The only scary part of the movie occurs at the very beginning as Eleanor (Lili Taylor) is told by her sister that she is to be dispossesed of her home per her deceased mother's will. Having no family, no friends, and now no place to live, the mousy Nell becomes desperate, grasping eagerly at a newspaper ad calling for volunteers for research that could help insomniacs like her. Unknown to her, Dr. David Marrow (Liam Neeson), who is conducting the inquiry, is more interested in exploring the nature of fear and has set up his experiment in a spacious gothic mansion that had existed somewhere in New England since 1837. Conveniently, the estate is unoccupied, looked after by a caretaker (Bruce Dern) and his wife (Marian Seldes), neither of whom ventures near the place after dark. In fact the caretaker locks the gate securely when he leaves each evening.
At the house, Nell meets Dr. Jeffrey Marrow and two other subjects for the experiment, Theo (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Luke (Owen Wilson)--both cockier and more confident than she. As things begin to creak and groan and move and moan in the night, Nell starts to lose it and is comforted by her fellow subjects and the doctor. Not long after that, though, all who occupy the house are convinced that it is haunted. After all, you don't often see giant arms reaching out from a multiplicity of gargoyles and assorted diabolic creatures every day, all seemingly intent on drowning, burning, strangling or otherwise acting in an unfriendly manner toward the residents.
As the performers strut and cower about the house, the corridors resound with ominous noises. Doors close suddenly and loudly, ghostly children crawl inside the sheets and float about the rooms, and ultimately an enormous painting of the home's diabolic owner comes to life like a Dickensian ghost of Christmas-Yet-To-Come, challenging little Nell in a conclusive duel to the death.
Lily Taylor comes off surprisingly well. Once known as the queen of the indies for her role in small, creative movies like "I Shot Andy Warhol," she takes on a role in a big budget movie and does what she can with as the only character with any development. By contrast the sensuous Catherine Zeta- Jones and the current cover-man of TimeOutNY magazine, Owen Wilson as the third subject of the experiment, Luke, have little to do but become wide-eyed as the mansion takes on a life of its own. Ms. Zeta-Jones hints at the bisexuality of her character, but nothing comes of this.
Despite the unintentionally comic moves made by the torsoes and heads of the figures that inhabit the walls and floors of the incredible Hill House, the movie will perhaps be nominated for an academy award for its production design, which Eugenia Zenetti ("What Dreams May Come") has created with an inspiration from the Harlaxton and Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire, England. The outside is not a set but the Harlaxton Manor in England's Nottinghamshire, a building now used as a foreign campus of Indiana's University of Evansville.
Though I have not read Ms. Jackson's story, I am a fan of her scariest, most allegorical tale, "The Lottery," about a group of rural townspeople who hold a drawing each year to determine which resident gets stoned to death. The little movie that came out of that novella remained true to the book's creative dialogue, hence retaining the fright and resonance of the printed page. "The Haunting," by contrast, stands as yet another fragment of evidence that more is often less.
Rated PG-13. Running Time: 117 minutes. (C) 1999 Harvey Karten
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