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Critics Consensus: Both psychological and supernatural, The Haunting is a chilling character study.
Critic Consensus: Both psychological and supernatural, The Haunting is a chilling character study.
All Critics (39) | Top Critics (6) | Fresh (34) | Rotten (5) | DVD (8)
When The Haunting digs into the internals of its story, summons its spirits and lets them play havoc with cold reason, it has a power and fervor unmatched by any film ghost stories.
People stare about in terror and squeak: 'The house, it's alive!' The picture, it's dead.
The artful cinematic strokes of director Robert Wise and staff are not quite enough to override the major shortcomings of Nelson Gidding's screenplay.
Pretty effective when it came out; it may be a little stiff in the joints by now, but it's still a much better scare show than the recent stinker remake.
What makes the film so effective is not so much the slightly sinister characterisation of the generally neurotic group, but the fact that [director] Wise makes the house itself the central character, a beautifully designed and highly atmospheric entity.
Makes more goose pimples than sense.
For the possible overuse of internal monologues and Julie Harris' overwrought but riveting performance as Eleanor, The Haunting still stands up as a relevant and effective study of both the psychology and parapsychology of its themes.
...one of the most fascinating aspects of The Haunting is the multiple interpretations available for many events, which might be supernatural, or might be the product of a disturbed mind or distorted perceptions.
This is one of the best supernatural chillers ever made.
Borderline perfect... Strip away all of its frightening elements, and the film remains a sophisticated, complex, and tremendously subtle character study.
The horror remains admirably attuned to the sense of solitude in a premature spinster
A dark brooding atmosphere, disturbing psychological insights and a handful of suddenly executed surprises make this old horror as fresh and vital as the day it was made.
One of the best ever and perhaps the template for the haunted house genre. A scientist wants a team of "experts" to verify if a celebrated haunted house is the real deal or what. Robert Wise gets his scares with sound and weird camera angles, shadows and music. There's no buckets of red corn syrup, no chopping of body parts, no unkillable killing machine with a fetish for William Shatner facemasks, only the hint of something out of reach in the dark. And it has stood the test of time. Richard Johnson's English scientist whispering his lines does some considerable spooky damage as well. Julie Harris' voiceover is only a tad annoying, but bearable in the overall scheme of things.
Super Reviewer
Julie Harris' narration gets a little excessive at times but otherwise, great classic horror film that sports a great brooding atmosphere, mesmerizing cinematography, and a great ensemble cast.
A sophisticated Gothic tale that doesn't show us anything that would actually frighten us to death but still manages to create an eerie sense of dread as it probes into the psychological and emotional unbalance faced by its protagonist and blurs the line between reality and illusion.
It's Robert Wise so it's not hack but I found this film very uneven. Two powerful actresses completely overshadow dominate over two crap male actors. Unfortunately they men get half the dialogue. There's a lesbian thing, there's and female postponed adolescence hysteria thing, there's guilt over a parent's death, there may be ghosts. Oh and there's a house. Eh, maybe horror's just not my bag.
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