View source for The Haunting (1963 film)

[[File:Haunting 1963film.jpg|thumb|200px|right|A Scene from The Haunting (1963)]]

''The Haunting'', AKA ''The Haunting of Hill House'' (1963 film); the inferior 1999 remake is probably best avoided

==Summary==
<!-- Short, Spoiler-Free Summary; tag-line or elevator pitch. -->

"An evil old house, the kind some people call haunted, is like an undiscovered country waiting to be explored. Hill House had stood for 90 years and might stand for 90 more. Silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone." A scientist doing research on the paranormal invites two women to a haunted mansion. One of the participants soon starts losing her mind. 

==Details==

* Release Date:  1963
* Country/Language:  UK/US, English
* Genres/Technical:  Horror (American gothic, psychological horror), black-and-white
* Runtime:  1 hr 52 min
* Starring:  Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, Russ Tamblyn
* Director:  [[Robert Wise]]
* Writer:  Nelson Gidding (screenplay), [[Shirley Jackson]] (story)
* Producer/Production Co:  Argyle Enterprises
* View Trailer: ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeAzGxWlEcg link]), ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDQhpa1anEc link])
* TVTropes Page: ([http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/TheHaunting1963 1963]), ([http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/TheHaunting1999 1999])
* IMDB Page: ([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057129/ 1963]), ([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0171363/ 1999])

==Ratings==
===[http://www.mpaa.org/film-ratings/ MPAA Ratings]===
<!--E.G., "Rated: R (Violence, Nudity, Language....)" -->
* Rated:  (not rated) (perhaps equivalent to a PG for )

===Tentacle Ratings===
A rough [[Tentacle Ratings|measure]] of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:
* S____ (One Tentacle:  Debateably Lovecraftian; has almost no direct connection to Lovecraft's work)

The author of this famous American Gothic haunted house story, Shirley Jackson, was quite familiar with the work of H.P. Lovecraft, and there are hints at this influence in the strange angles and abnormal geometry of the house, and in a couple of vaguely-sketched (and frightening) scenes of cosmic horror found only in the novel (such as a scene where the two female investigators walk through a garden behind the house at night, with the garden's description becoming more and more unearthly and surreal, as the women slowly begin to realize that they are being followed by some cosmically terrifying Thing which is never fully described and never mentioned again), the tension between the scientifically explainable and terror of the unknown, and perhaps in the form of the overlapping accounts in dialogue and thought of various unreliable narrators which leave the audience to piece together a frightening but incomplete truth from an enigmatic collection of subtle clues.  Ultimately, the film is not very "Lovecraftian" (nothing overtly supernatural happens in this film that could not be explained away as someone's imagination or a hoax perpetrated by one or more of the characters), beyond, perhaps, a weird, dreamlike atmosphere of unreality to the bizarre setting, but the film is a classic that would be of interest to fans of horror films in general, if not fans of Lovecraft's brand of American Gothic horror.

The execrable 1999 remake (and perhaps the two Stephen King remakes) does actually include a cartoonish sort of Lovecraftian abomination, though this would still qualify the remakes as only of interest to completists, at best.

''Note:  This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.''

===Reviews===
<!--A list of reviews for the work, along with the review's rating (for example, "4/5 Stars") * Author_andor_Location, ([URL link]) - RATING -->
Review Links:
* Almar Haflidason  at the BBC Movies Review (4/5 Stars) ([http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2000/12/12/the_haunting_1963_review.shtml link]) - "...the star of the film is undoubtedly the house, and once inside it begins not only to haunt the characters but the viewer too. ...  director Robert Wise dedicates the rest of the movie to establishing genuine fear that's punctuated with carefully timed shocks."
* Richard Scheib at the Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review (5/5 Stars) ([http://moria.co.nz/horror/haunting-1963.htm link]) - "The shocks that Robert Wise crafts in ''The Haunting'' are some of the most sophisticated and finely constructed ever placed on film. Like the best of Lewton, all ghosts in ''The Haunting'' take place entirely by suggestion..."

==Synopsis==
<!-- Optional; Objective, unbiased, detailed synopsis of film's plot and themes -->
{{spoiler|
Dr. John Markway, an anthropologist with an interest in psychic phenomena, takes two specially selected women to Hill House, a reportedly haunted mansion. Eleanor, a lonely, eccentric woman with a supernatural event in her past, and the bold Theodora, who has ESP, join John and the mansion's heir, cynical Luke. They are immediately overwhelmed by strange sounds and events, and Eleanor comes to believe the house is alive and speaking directly to her.
}}


==Notes==

===Comments, Trivia, Dedication===
<!-- Optional; describe anything known or reported by experts about the origin of the story or inspiration for elements of it; list dedication, trivia, images, anything else of note -->
* A couple of remakes were made, but were generally not as warmly received as the original film:
** ''The Haunting'' (1999), a troubled remake briefly worked on by [[Wes Craven]]
** ''Rose Red'' (2002), an attempted remake by [[Stephen King]]
** ''The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer'' (2003), a prequel to ''Rose Red'' by [[Stephen King]]
* The execrable 1999 remake does actually include a sort of Lovecraftian abomination (the two Stephen King films might also make token nods toward Lovecraftian horror).
 

===Associated Mythos Elements===
* Fiction:  [[Shirley Jackson]]'s "[[The Haunting of Hill House (fiction)]]" (compare also to the thematically similar ''We Have Always Lived in the Castle'' by the same author)
* TO DO


===Keeper Notes===
<!-- Optional.  Notes to Keepers on using this for film for scenario ideas.  Heresies and Controversies:  this is also a good place to include non-canon and controversial aspects of the film's mythos.  Suggested Alternative Theories include:  Derleth's elemental scheme; pseudo-science interpretation; "fanon" interpretations; unofficial humorous or eccentric versions; identification with "Real Life" mythological, religious, folklore, natural, and historical phenomena; rumor and speculation contribute some flexibility and ambiguity to the mythos. * Alternative_theory.  ([[source]])  -->
* This film is one of the inspirations for the ubiquitous Call of Cthulhu scenario, "[[The_Haunting_(aka_The_Haunted_House)_(Scenario)|The Haunting]]"...


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[[Category:Film:General]]
[[Category:Film:Film]]
[[Category:Film:GothicHorror]]
[[Category:Film:MadnessAndMentalHospitals]]
[[Category:Film:DownerEnding]]
[[Category:Film:One-Tentacle Media]]
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