The Haunting (1999)

OH.... where to begin?

I am a big fan of the 1963 Robert Wise version of this film, which gets a lot of scares simply by having creepy noises and PSYCHOLOGICAL DEPTH. It really is a creepy, suspenseful film, and, like most good haunted house stories, you never know if there are really ghosts or if one of the characters is just cracking up. I even read the novel, of which the 1963 version is a good adaptation.

As soon as I saw that Jan De Bont was doing a remake, I knew he would screw it up in the worst imaginable way. That man couldn't direct a rock to sit still. Everyone knows that. I know that. Why doesn't Dreamworks know that? I even forced my friend to watch the original so he would know how bad the new one was going to be. Jan didn't prove me wrong.

The movie is just a collection of STOOOOOPID, pointless special effects (I'm sorry-- were faces in curtains EVER scary?) and even worse, they've taken a decent story and character dynamic and thrown it out, inventing their own, stupendously ridiculous story instead. It truly is incredible. And Jan De Bont has described it as a "character-driven piece." Is he PSYCHOTIC?

In the original, Nell is an isolated woman who has spent the past eleven years taking care of her dying mother. She is selected, along with everyone else, because they have demonstrated psychic ability. Then there's the beautiful and glamorous Theo. She and Nell develop a catty friendship, and there are all sorts of issues of jealously and attraction because Theo is so much better-looking than her. Nell is attracted to the Doctor, and seems to think she has a chance, but then his wife shows up, which totally sends her off the deep end. By the time the film ends tragically, you wonder if there were ghosts at all or Nell's inner demons finally overcame her.

The new version recasts the characters PERFECTLY. I don't know if I could think of better modern equivalents to the original cast, and the characters they were supposed to be. I even had a moment of doubt, thinking this remake might actually be good. Unfortunately, the brilliant work of the casting director went totally to waste, because Jan and screenwriter (let him be named: David Self) decided that they're smarter than Shirley Jackson ever was and they'd just make up their OWN characters and story!

The new film chucks the original character dynamic almost entirely. The characters are supposedly chosen because they're insomniac. The flirtation and bitchiness between Nell and Theo is gone, as is the Doctor's wife. Buh-bye! In comes some RIDICULOUS garbage about the owner of the house killing kids from "the mill" [The MILL?!] and the house wanting Nell because she's the great-grandchild of the original owner and she needs to set the souls of those children free. Now WHERE the HELL did all THAT come from?

It seems to me that if you want to remake a movie, you want to do it because you liked how it was done and think you could heighten that-- not toss it out the window. This movie replaces the suggestion of the first film with MINDLESS special effects, which are not scary for A SECOND. Okay, if you THINK you may have seen a face form in the curtains for an INSTANT, that MIGHT be a LITTLE BIT scary. If you THINK you may have seen a statue move, that MIGHT be a TINY BIT scary. Not when the things are wigging out all over the place, not when every curtain has faces winking at you, not when every statue is like an Olympic gymnast. Does ANYONE (over the age of five) that that stuff is anything other than LUDICROUS?

It's all kind of funny/pathetic, but there are a few prize moments (though the lines that made early screening groups laugh have been taken out—Drat focus testing!).

> Lili walks into the most ornate house ever built, after spending eleven years in a two-room flat-- and DOESN'T BAT AN EYE.

> Near the end there's a massive CG face coming down from the ceiling, with big gray arms reaching out, and Liam and Catherine walk in and pick Lili up as if absolutely nothing is happening. HaHa!

> There's also this unexplained steam rising in the halls. Why?

> Mostly the film is just sad. The actors will all move on, but I feel sorry for Jan De Bont and the screenwriter that they insist on humiliating themselves so thoroughly... and so publicly. Maybe I'll send them a card.

The actors are all fine, especially Catherine, who was much better than she was in Entrapment. I like her. She's always game for something. Owen Wilson, however, was the most convincing character. And Lili, Lili, poor Lili... how could they have done this to you? It is EMBARRASSING having to watch a good actress go through this kind of RIDICULOUS GARBAGE. OH... it's painful. The ending... there's only one word, which can't be said forcefully enough: STUPID.

Interestingly, this film becomes a thinly-veiled parable about... INCEST. Nell has lived alone with her mother, without a father around. She goes to the house, where there is a big, tyrannical father figure terrorizing all the kids. She finds out that he is her great-grandfather, and has a vision of herself pregnant by him. Then, in the end, she offers herself to the father figure, thus setting all of the other children free, who thank her quietly as they leave. It's not that I think the director or screenwriter had this subtext in mind, it's just that their work is so primal and base that an unconscious order happens to emerge.

This movie will leave you amazed that the director and screenwriter can even dress themselves. If they can—I don't know.