The Haunting [Blu-ray]

Director: Robert Wise

Overview

One of the most highly regarded haunted house films ever produced, Robert Wise's The Haunting (based on Shirley Jackson's novel The Haunting of Hill House) weaves the dark tale of a questionably sane young woman and a sinister house which holds a terrifying past. Invited to join anthropologist Dr. Markway (Richard Johnson), ESP expert Theodora (Claire Bloom), and probable heir to the estate Luke Sanderson (Russ Tamblyn) in order to dispel the near mythical tales that surround the house, unstable Eleanor Vance (Julie Harris) agrees to spend a few nights in the house following the death of her mother. As they slowly begin to discover, the horrific and seemingly unbelievable tales may hold more truth than the skeptical guests might have previously expected. With a seemingly unstoppable supernatural force lurking in every shadow, the probability of anyone escaping the evil clutch of the cursed mansion seems increasingly remote.

Product Details

Release Date:	10/15/2013
UPC:	0883929329793
Original Release:	1963
Rating:	G
Source:	Turner Home Ent
Presentation:	[B&W, Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	1:52:00
Sales rank:	5,079

Special Features

Commentary By Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, Russ Tamblyn, director Robert Wise and screenwriter Nelson Gidding; Theatrical trailer

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Julie Harris	Eleanor Lance
Claire Bloom	Theodora
Russ Tamblyn	Luke Sanderson
Fay Compton	Mrs. Sanderson
Rosalie Crutchley	Mrs. Dudley
Lois Maxwell	Grace Markway,Bud
Valentine Dyall	Mr. Dudley
Diane Clare	Carrie Fredericks
Ronald Adam	Eldridge Harper
Freda Knorr	Second Mrs. Crain
Janet Mansell	Abigail at 6
Pamela Buckley	First Mrs. Crain
Howard Lang	Hugh Crain
Mavis Villiers	Landlady
Verina Greenlaw	Dora
Claud Jones	Fat Man
Susan Richards	Nurse
Amy Dalby	Abigail at 80
Rosemary Dorken	Companion
Richard Johnson	Dr. John Markway
Humphrey Searle	Composer

Technical Credits

Nelson Gidding

Robert Wise	Director,Producer
Nelson Gidding	Screenwriter
Tom Howard	Special Effects

Editorial Reviews

Things that go bump in the night bump overtime in 1963's The Haunting, the quintessential haunted-house film from genre chameleon Robert Wise. The setup is as straightforward as they come: An anthropologist (Richard Johnson) arranges for a handpicked group of guests to stay at a remote New England mansion to investigate legends that it is haunted. Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, and Russ Tamblyn play the guinea pigs in this experiment, which unfolds into a classic ghost story where the spirits in question really do make quite a nocturnal racket. Don't expect much in the way of visual effects however: The Haunting is a Monkey's Paw-type thriller where what you don't see turns out to be scarier than what you do. Wise accomplishes this feat with some exquisite lighting and camerawork that simply immerses the viewer in an atmosphere of eerie mystery that, like the prolonged foreplay of an expert lover, continues long after other films would have climaxed. Harris provides a strange voiceover throughout, gradually revealing her character's strange affinity with the forces at work, while reinforcing the discomforting sense that the line between what is tangibly real and what is delusional can be difficult to draw. And some intriguing erotic tensions wind their way through the group, tensions that seem to become yet another layer of psychic danger. Ultimately, a lot is left to the imagination in The Haunting -- unlike its flashier 1999 remake -- making it a masterpiece of thoroughly distilled suspense.

Barnes & Noble - Gregory Baird

Between his phenomenally sunny musical successes West Side Story (1961) and The Sound of Music (1965), director Robert Wise found time to make this brooding, low-key shocker, based on the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. The material seemed to free up Wise's baser talents: The off-kilter, black-and-white photography goes a long way in intensifying the production's minimal special effects, and the actors uniformly overplay their parts, giving the film a streamlined momentum it might have lacked otherwise. Though the story's lesbian subtext was toned down for the film, the sleek Claire Bloom injects some much-needed sexual tension into the proceedings; the film is less about the group's battle against poltergeists than about the inner struggle between the virginal Eleanor Lance (Julie Harris) and her conflicting desires. Jackson's story would be adapted for the screen again, in 1999's sub-par The Haunting.

All Movie Guide - Michael Hastings