"A House That Was Born Bad": THE HAUNTING

 It's that time of year again!  Halloween may not be my favorite holiday (not sure what is, I don't really care that much), but no holiday has such strong ties to movies.  There is a whole genre of movies integral to Halloween ritual: horror movies.  More far-reaching than that is "scary movies" which can range from horrors and thrillers (sometimes there's barely a discernible difference between those two) to sci-fi and adventure movies.  There's also a great many family movies applicable to this season, mildly spooky comedies that all ages can enjoy together.  It's a good thing too that Halloween doesn't come until the final day of October, because even a whole month is hardly enough time to get through all the worthwhile Halloween movies, but hey, it's enough time to get through a good-sized chunk.  Throughout the month of October, I'll be writing about some of the movies I'm watching (maybe a couple that I didn't watch this year, but still have some things to say), most them I think good, some of them great, a smaller few less-than-good, and I'll try to cover a wide range of films to cater to every taste.  Are you ready?  Then come along on a journey into dark, beginning with the film that many of today's filmmakers erroneously cite as the "scariest film ever made," a haunted house movie that played no small part in inspiring Disneyland's The Haunted Mansion and featured one of the earliest examples of a positive portrayal of LGBT characters- Robert Wise's THE HAUNTING!

THE HAUNTING  (HORROR/MYSTERY-THRILLER, 1963) 
Directed by Robert Wise
Starring: Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, Russ Tamblyn, Fay Compton, Rosalie Crutchley, Lois Maxwell, Valentine Dyall, Diane Clare, Ronald Adam
Rated G (strong PG or PG-13 level; thematic material involving frightening moments and scary images).
112 minutes
SCAREmeter: 4.5/10 (scarier than the average "old" movie)
GOREmeter: 2/10 (only a couple brief morbid images; a hanging)
LAUGHmeter: 2/10
OVERALL: 3/4 

THE HAUNTING is undoubtedly one of the most highly-regarded haunted house movies ever, alongside Stanley Kubrick's more widely-seen THE SHINING.  Martin Scorcese, the cineaste director of GOODFELLAS and THE DEPARTED (in the horror genre, he's made CAPE FEAR and SHUTTER ISLAND), declared it the scariest horror film ever made, and it's also been hailed by horror author Stephen King and film mogul Steven Spielberg as one of the scariest films ever made.
Myself, I wasn't so aware of its reputation when I first saw it- what drew me to check it out was actually a loose connection that the film had to Disneyland, one of my other major interests.
It's based on a novel called The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, about a house that was "born bad".  With a 90-year history of terrors, Hill House mansion has remained uninhabited for some time; as the mansion's owner, Mrs. Sanderson (Fay Compton), states, "The dead are not quiet in Hill House."  The eccentric Dr. John Markway (Richard Johnson), interested in investigating paranormal activity, recruits people to spend some time in the house with him.  In hopes of perhaps provoking the spirits of the house, Markway's experiment includes Eleanor "Nell" Lance (Julie Harris), a homely and unstable woman who feels guilty for the recent death of her invalid mother, to whom she acted as caretaker, and Theodora "Theo", a bohemian lesbian woman with psychic abilities.  Also in the mix is Mrs. Sanderson's skeptical nephew Luke (Russ Tamblyn), who stands to inherit the mansion.  The disturbances of Hill House are not long coming, causing havoc on the very first night as mysterious pounding is heard by some of the inhabitants, but not others, and the ghosts appear to favor Eleanor, in particular, to make a permanent resident.
THE HAUNTING is much more finessed in its scare tactics and execution than you'd expect from a film of that era, but declarations that it's one of the best or one of the scariest horror films are hardly deserved.  What constantly keeps it at a distance for me is Julie Harris as Eleanor, a character who is simply too contemptible, too whiny, too dull, and yet we have to deal with her the most of all the characters.  She's never sure, never smart and never likable.  The most interesting performance in the film is Claire Bloom as Theo, a rare and positive portrayal of an LGBT character for the time and the only character who seems to have a handle on what's going on and with a sense of human decency (which Markway lacks).  Being released during the Production Code era, prior to the introduction of the MPAA film ratings system in 1968, it can never be made explicitly clear that Theo is lesbian, but there's little question to it anyway, based on her interactions with other characters and a few lines of dialogue.  In any case, the filmmakers have been explicit about their intentions in interviews.
Now for that Disneyland connection: it's pretty obvious for anyone familiar with Disney's The Haunted Mansion when watching THE HAUNTING, Disney Imagineers borrowed some of their inspiration from Robert Wise's film.  THE HAUNTING is actually a fairly minor influence of The Haunted Mansion, which opened to the public six years after the film was released and which also borrowed ideas from the famous Winchester Mystery House, among other things.  The most obvious parallel between THE HAUNTING and The Haunted Mansion is the "Breathing Door", an effect featured in the attraction in the "Corridor of Doors" and what is probably the film's most famous moment, where something causes a wooden door to bulge outwardly, like a breathing chest, inflating and deflating.  Also, the interior decorating of Hill House is in a chaotic Rococo style with clashing patterns, tasseled drapes and excessive ornamentation similar to the hallways and rooms of the Haunted Mansion prior to the Graveyard finale scene.