One Paragraph Movie Review: The Haunting

Two hundred and seventeenth film: The Haunting, the 1963 film based on the same book that 2018’s The Haunting of Hill House series was. This is a proper haunted house movie, even though it doesn’t have any visible ghosts. It relies almost entirely for its spookies on loud bangs, chilly spots, and funny angles, both in the house’s architecture and the cinematography, and does so pretty bloody effectively (minus the bloody). Basically, a paranormal scientist brings three ‘assistants’ — nervous Nel, groovy Theodora, and boofhead college kid Luke — to a notorious haunted house to study it, and the rest is all suggestion and lighting. I like that nothing was clearly spelled out — at the end I wasn’t sure who was holding Nel’s hand, whether the house was hungry or Nel was crazy, and what everything meant. But that’s the point — like the off-centre door frames in the house, there’s not really any explanation, something’s just a bit off. Good, spooky, and makes me want a salmon dinner off fancy crockery. Two and a half bulging parlour doors out of five.