| Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) | Release Date: September 18, 1963 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
7
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
Sound effects, disorienting camera work, expert editing, and Humphrey Searle's discomfiting score all suggest, without showing, a horrible presence waiting in the wings. Though parts of The Haunting are talky, even that works in the film's favor, as Tamblyn's glib dismissals and Johnson's calm professorial tone are unable to clear up the mystery at its core. After all, the specters that can't be seen, classified, or otherwise contained are the scariest of all.
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What makes the film so effective is not so much the slightly sinister characterisation of the generally neurotic group, but the fact that Wise makes the house itself the central character, a beautifully designed and highly atmospheric entity which, despite the often annoyingly angled camerawork, becomes genuinely frightening.
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An elegantly sinister scare movie, literate and expensive, with those two fine actresses Claire Bloom and Julie Harris.
In this movie version, directed by Robert Wise, the specter is slightly censored—what's left is just the usual commercial spirit. Whenever it appears, the violins on the sound track start to didder, doors open and shut by themselves, people stare about in terror and squeak: The house, it's alive! The picture, it's dead.
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