THE HAUNTING
A Film Review by Brian Takeshita
Rating: ** out of ****
Okay, I admit it. I don't really like scary movies a whole lot because they're, well, scary. Sometimes the ol' imagination gets going when I'm alone at night, and the images I saw in that creepy movie two days ago come back to haunt me. I lie in bed under the covers and wonder just how much I have to go to the bathroom. Doing so would mean putting my foot on the floor for a second, leaving myself exposed to any number of things that might reach out from under the bed and grab my ankle. No, I can wait until morning. If I can go back to sleep, that is.
The latest film to come out of SKG Dreamworks, Jan De Bont's THE HAUNTING, gives us chills and scares, but (lucky for me) doesn't present us with a great deal of those indelible images that haunt us after we've left the theater. There's a scene, for example, when one of the characters investigates the ashes of a large fireplace and finds a skeleton. What happens next caused half the theater to collectively scream, but it's hearing the surprise of 200 people that I'll remember, not what happened on the screen. Phil Tippett's effects company and the venerable Industrial Light and Magic do a marvelous job rendering seamless computer images like moving statues and shifting walls, but again, while the effects may be impressive, the impression doesn't last.
The one image that has stayed with me was also the one that freaked me out the most in the theater. Interestingly, it was also probably the easiest effect undertaken in the film. Throughout the house are carvings of children's faces - these little cherubic images that many people find charming. One of the characters is lying in bed and glances over to a row of these carvings, all seemingly staring at the wall opposite them. She looks away for a second, and when she looks back they have all shifted position so that they are facing her. Very reminiscent of that scene early in POLTERGEIST when the mother turns away from the kitchen table, then turns back to find all the chairs stacked up on the table. It goes it show that sometimes the simplest things work the best.
Unfortunately, it seems pretty obvious that the effects, rather than the story, were meant to carry the film. The plot revolves around researcher Dr. Jeffrey Marrow (Liam Neeson) and three subjects he recruits for what he says is a study of insomnia, but which is actually a study of group fear. As part of this study, they are to spend several weeks in a mansion in the Berkshires known as Hill House. The three subjects, Eleanor (Lili Taylor), Theodora (Catherine Zeta-Jones), and Luke (Owen Wilson) are a cross section of personalities who are totally unaware of the true nature of their participation. "You don't tell the rats they're in a maze," says Marrow. Indeed. Marrow's reasoning for conducting his study in the gothicly creepy Hill House is that it's a highly suggestive environment from which his subjects will no doubt generate their own imagined fears. The rest of the story in a nutshell: Guess what, the house really is haunted! Mayhem ensues.
It turns out that the owner of the mansion, the late Hugh Crane, is still in the house - yes, that's right - haunting it. Crane apparently built the house for children he would never have, yet legend has it that at night, inhabitants of the nearby village would hear children's voices. Why this is and why the spirits of a couple hundred children are also inhabiting the stately Crane manor is not fully explained. It also turns out that Eleanor has a connection to the Crane family, and may be the only one able to free the spirits of the children. This is also not explained to satisfaction, and contributes greatly to a rather poorly constructed story. Basically, we see things happen, but are only given superficial reasons why, and later on, the "explanations" raise more questions than they answer. What sort of power does Eleanor command? Why does she have this power? How, exactly, was she drawn to participate in the study? Crane had two wives? When were we informed of this and why was this significant?
Eleanor is the only important character in the film, and even she gets annoying once she starts down the path toward realizing why she's there. Marrow, the one who was controlling the experiment, doesn't even know what's going on until it's too late, and Theodora is a turn off from the beginning, showing up with too much luggage and a rich girl's attitude. "I like your boots," admires Eleanor. "Prada," explains Theodora. "Milan, not New York." Oh, she likes girls as well as boys, by the way. I don't know why they even put this in, as it never becomes much of an issue. As for Luke, he's just in there to show up looking surprised when something happens. As a result, our emotional attachment to these characters is pretty close to zero.
There are a few good points to the film, in addition to the effects I mentioned earlier. Soundwise, THE HAUNTING is very rich. The mere sound of the mansion's heavy doors slamming shut is enough to send a little shiver up your spine, and when things really start popping, the theater's speakers nearly jump off the walls. More than a few shots by de Bont are designed to generate suspense, and they generally do so with success. On several occasions, for example, the camera lingers on objects after the actors have left the scene, and our own imaginations take over. Did I see it move? It's as if we're the subjects of Dr. Marrow's study. Oh, yeah, and the film gets a couple of extra points for using an AMC Gremlin automobile in a few scenes. No, I don't like the Gremlin, by hey, fits with the supernatural theme, you know? Unfortunately, with lackluster story which confuses more than captivates, and effects which startle more than scare, THE HAUNTING, like the Gremlin, turns out to be mostly a disappointment.
Review posted July 24, 1999
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