The Haunting (1999 film)
Encyclopedia
The Haunting is a 1999 remake of the 1963 horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...

 of the same name
The Haunting (1963 film)
The Haunting is a 1963 British psychological horror film by American director Robert Wise and adapted by Nelson Gidding from the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. It stars Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, and Russ Tamblyn. The film centers around the conflict between...

. Both films are based on the novel The Haunting of Hill House
The Haunting of Hill House
For the Richard Matheson novel, see Hell House, made into a film titled The Legend of Hell House.The Haunting of Hill House is a 1959 novel by author Shirley Jackson. Finalist for the National Book Award and considered one of the best literary ghost stories published during the twentieth century,...

by Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson was an American author. A popular writer in her time, her work has received increasing attention from literary critics in recent years...

, published in 1959. The Haunting was directed by Jan de Bont
Jan de Bont
Jan de Bont is a Dutch cinematographer, producer, and film director.-Early life and career:De Bont was born, one of 17 children, to a Roman Catholic family in Eindhoven, Netherlands. His earliest work after studying at the Amsterdam Film Academy was with the Dutch avant garde director Adriaan...

 and stars Liam Neeson
Liam Neeson
Liam John Neeson, OBE is an Irish actor who has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA and three Golden Globe Awards.He has starred in a number of notable roles including Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Michael Collins in Michael Collins, Peyton Westlake in Darkman, Jean Valjean in Les...

, Catherine Zeta-Jones
Catherine Zeta-Jones
Catherine Zeta-Jones, CBE, is a British actress. She began her career on stage at an early age. After starring in a number of United Kingdom and United States television films and small roles in films, she came to prominence with roles in Hollywood movies such as the 1998 action film The Mask of...

, Owen Wilson
Owen Wilson
Owen Cunningham Wilson is an American actor and writer, known for his roles in the films The Haunting, The Royal Tenenbaums, Zoolander, Meet the Parents, Wedding Crashers, You, Me and Dupree, Bottle Rocket, the Cars series, The Darjeeling Limited, Marley & Me, Midnight in Paris, Shanghai Noon,...

 and Lili Taylor
Lili Taylor
Lili Anne Taylor is an American actress notable for her appearances in such award-winning indie films as Mystic Pizza, Say Anything..., Short Cuts and I Shot Andy Warhol, and the acclaimed TV show Six Feet Under....

. It was released in the United States on July 23, 1999.

Plot

Eleanor “Nell” Vance (Lili Taylor
Lili Taylor
Lili Anne Taylor is an American actress notable for her appearances in such award-winning indie films as Mystic Pizza, Say Anything..., Short Cuts and I Shot Andy Warhol, and the acclaimed TV show Six Feet Under....

) has cared for her invalid mother for 11 years. After her mother dies, her sister (Virginia Madsen
Virginia Madsen
Virginia Madsen is an American actress and documentary film producer. She came to fame during the 1980s, having appeared in several films aimed at a teenage audience...

) evicts her. Nell receives a phone call about an insomnia
Insomnia
Insomnia is most often defined by an individual's report of sleeping difficulties. While the term is sometimes used in sleep literature to describe a disorder demonstrated by polysomnographic evidence of disturbed sleep, insomnia is often defined as a positive response to either of two questions:...

 study, directed by Dr. David Marrow (Liam Neeson
Liam Neeson
Liam John Neeson, OBE is an Irish actor who has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA and three Golden Globe Awards.He has starred in a number of notable roles including Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Michael Collins in Michael Collins, Peyton Westlake in Darkman, Jean Valjean in Les...

) at Hill House, a secluded manor
Manor
-Land tenure:*Manor, an estate in land of the mediaeval era in England*Manorialism, a system of land tenure and organization of the rural economy and society in parts of medieval Europe based on the manor*Manor house, the principal house of a manor...

 in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

, and applies for it. At the house, she meets Mr. and Mrs. Dudley (Bruce Dern
Bruce Dern
Bruce MacLeish Dern is an American film actor. He also appeared as a guest star in numerous television shows. He frequently takes roles as a character actor, often playing unstable and villainous characters...

, Marian Seldes
Marian Seldes
Marian Hall Seldes is an American stage, film, radio, and television actress whose career has spanned six decades and who was elected to the American Theatre Hall of Fame.-Life and career:...

), a strange pair of caretakers. Two other participants arrive, Luke Sanderson (Owen Wilson
Owen Wilson
Owen Cunningham Wilson is an American actor and writer, known for his roles in the films The Haunting, The Royal Tenenbaums, Zoolander, Meet the Parents, Wedding Crashers, You, Me and Dupree, Bottle Rocket, the Cars series, The Darjeeling Limited, Marley & Me, Midnight in Paris, Shanghai Noon,...

), and the bisexual Theodora (Catherine Zeta-Jones
Catherine Zeta-Jones
Catherine Zeta-Jones, CBE, is a British actress. She began her career on stage at an early age. After starring in a number of United Kingdom and United States television films and small roles in films, she came to prominence with roles in Hollywood movies such as the 1998 action film The Mask of...

), along with Dr. Marrow and his two research assistants.

Unknown to the participants, Dr. Marrow’s true purpose is to study the psychological response to fear, intending to expose his subjects to increasing amounts of terror. Each night, the caretakers chain the gate outside Hill House, preventing anyone from getting in or out until morning. During their first night, Dr. Marrow relates the story of Hill House. The house was built by Hugh Crain
Hugh Crain
Hugh Crain is a backstory character from Shirley Jackson's 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House.-Novel:In Shirley Jackon's novel, The Haunting of Hill House, Hugh Crain built Hill House eighty years ago meant as a country home for his small family: with the initial desire to see his children and...

 (Charles Gunning) — a 19th century textile tycoon. Crain built the house for his wife, hoping to populate it with a large family of children; however, all of Crain’s children died during birth. Crain’s wife died before the house was finished, and Crain became a recluse. After the story, Marrow's assistant’s face is slashed by a snapped clavichord
Clavichord
The clavichord is a European stringed keyboard instrument known from the late Medieval, through the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras. Historically, it was widely used as a practice instrument and as an aid to composition, not being loud enough for larger performances. The clavichord produces...

 wire. The freak accident causes Marrow’s research assistants to leave.

Theo and Nell begin to experience strange phenomena within the house. Nell sees apparitions, but the others don't believe her. Hugh Crain's wood portrait morphs into a skeletal face and is vandalized with the words "Welcome Home Eleanor" written in blood. Eleanor becomes determined to prove that the house is haunted by the souls of people victimized by Crain's cruelty. She learns that Crain took children from his mills and murdered them, then burned the bodies in the fireplace, trapping their spirits and forcing them to remain with him, providing him with an 'eternal family'. She also learns that Crain had a second wife named Carolyn, from whom she is descended.

After several more terrifying events, Nell insists that she cannot leave the souls of the children to suffer for eternity at Crain's hands. Trying to convince the obviously mentally-unbalanced Eleanor to leave the house with them, Theo offers to let Nell move in with her, but Nell reveals her relation to Carolyn and claims she must help the children "pass on". Hugh Crain's spirit seals up the house, trapping them all inside. A frustrated Luke defaces a portrait
Portrait
thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...

 of Hugh Crain. Crain's enraged spirit drags Luke to the fireplace where he is decapitated
Decapitation
Decapitation is the separation of the head from the body. Beheading typically refers to the act of intentional decapitation, e.g., as a means of murder or execution; it may be accomplished, for example, with an axe, sword, knife, wire, or by other more sophisticated means such as a guillotine...

. Nell is able to lead Crain's spirit towards an iron door. Avenging spirits pull Crain into the door, dragging him down to Hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...

. Nell is pulled with him, inflicting fatal trauma on her body, but the spirits gently release her on the ground. Her soul rises up to Heaven
Heaven
Heaven, the Heavens or Seven Heavens, is a common religious cosmological or metaphysical term for the physical or transcendent place from which heavenly beings originate, are enthroned or inhabit...

, accompanied by the ghosts of Crain's victims. After Nell's death, Theo and Dr. Marrow wait by the gate outside till the Dudleys come in the morning.

The Dudleys approach as the sun rises. Mr. Dudley asks Dr. Marrow if he found what he wanted to know, but the trauma
Psychological trauma
Psychological trauma is a type of damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a traumatic event...

tized psychiatrist does not give an answer, and neither does Theo. When the gate opens, the two silently walk out and down the road, leaving Hill House behind them.

Cast

  • Liam Neeson
    Liam Neeson
    Liam John Neeson, OBE is an Irish actor who has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA and three Golden Globe Awards.He has starred in a number of notable roles including Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Michael Collins in Michael Collins, Peyton Westlake in Darkman, Jean Valjean in Les...

     as Doctor David Marrow
  • Catherine Zeta-Jones
    Catherine Zeta-Jones
    Catherine Zeta-Jones, CBE, is a British actress. She began her career on stage at an early age. After starring in a number of United Kingdom and United States television films and small roles in films, she came to prominence with roles in Hollywood movies such as the 1998 action film The Mask of...

     as Theo
  • Owen Wilson
    Owen Wilson
    Owen Cunningham Wilson is an American actor and writer, known for his roles in the films The Haunting, The Royal Tenenbaums, Zoolander, Meet the Parents, Wedding Crashers, You, Me and Dupree, Bottle Rocket, the Cars series, The Darjeeling Limited, Marley & Me, Midnight in Paris, Shanghai Noon,...

     as Luke Sanderson
  • Lili Taylor
    Lili Taylor
    Lili Anne Taylor is an American actress notable for her appearances in such award-winning indie films as Mystic Pizza, Say Anything..., Short Cuts and I Shot Andy Warhol, and the acclaimed TV show Six Feet Under....

     as Eleanor "Nell" Vance
  • Marian Seldes
    Marian Seldes
    Marian Hall Seldes is an American stage, film, radio, and television actress whose career has spanned six decades and who was elected to the American Theatre Hall of Fame.-Life and career:...

     as Mrs. Dudley
  • Bruce Dern
    Bruce Dern
    Bruce MacLeish Dern is an American film actor. He also appeared as a guest star in numerous television shows. He frequently takes roles as a character actor, often playing unstable and villainous characters...

     as Mr. Dudley
  • Alix Koromzay as Mary Lambetta
  • Todd Field
    Todd Field
    William Todd Field, known professionally as Todd Field is an American actor and writer/director. He has received three Academy Award nominations.-Background and personal life:...

     as Todd Hackett
  • Virginia Madsen
    Virginia Madsen
    Virginia Madsen is an American actress and documentary film producer. She came to fame during the 1980s, having appeared in several films aimed at a teenage audience...

     as Jane Vance
  • Charles Gunning as Hugh Crain
    Hugh Crain
    Hugh Crain is a backstory character from Shirley Jackson's 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House.-Novel:In Shirley Jackon's novel, The Haunting of Hill House, Hugh Crain built Hill House eighty years ago meant as a country home for his small family: with the initial desire to see his children and...


Differences from the novel

  • The "ghostly" elements are experienced mainly by Eleanor and can all be considered imaginary, delusional, or contrived by human agency as well as being true ghostly events. Eleanor develops a strange affection for the house and is implied, eventually, as having pre-existing psychological troubles (or perhaps some sort of psychic ability): the doctor admits that he made a mistake by having her in the house, and dismisses her from the study. Eleanor dies (either by suicide
    Suicide
    Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

     or by ghostly intervention) by her car crashing into a tree just outside the House. In the 1999 film, she dies when she is dragged into the iron doors along with Hugh Crain's malevolent spirit, and her soul later rises to heaven.
  • Eleanor is portrayed in the 1999 film as a heroic "messiah
    Messiah
    A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...

    " of sorts, breaking the curse of Hill House and releasing the souls of the children from Crain's captivity (as opposed to just being a tragic, disturbed, and delusional character).
  • Dr. John Montague of the novel is re-named Dr. David Marrow. In the novel and original film, he wished to find proof of the supernatural, but in the 1999 film, he wishes to study the psychological effects of fear.
  • In the novel and original film, Luke Sanderson survives his stay at Hill House.

Production

Wes Craven
Wes Craven
Wesley Earl "Wes" Craven is an American actor, film director, writer, producer, perhaps best known as the director of many horror films, particularly slasher films, including the famed A Nightmare on Elm Street and Wes Craven's New Nightmare, featuring the iconic Freddy Krueger character, the...

 was at one point developing a remake of The Haunting, but dropped out in favor of Scream 3
Scream 3
Scream 3 is a 2000 American slasher film created by Kevin Williamson, directed by Wes Craven and written by Ehren Kruger, starring Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox Arquette and David Arquette, released on February 4, 2000 as the third, and originally, concluding installment in the Scream film series...

. Under Dreamworks, the film was originally to have been a collaboration between Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...

 (mainly, as director) and Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...

 (as screenwriter), but the two had creative differences. King instead wrote the teleplay for Rose Red
Rose Red (film)
Rose Red is a television miniseries scripted by horror novelist Stephen King. The series was premiered in the United States on ABC on January 27, 2002. The story involves a cavernous Seattle mansion called Rose Red, which is investigated by parapsychologist Dr. Joyce Reardon and a team of...

, a television miniseries that shares many elements with Jackson's source novel, The Haunting of Hill House
The Haunting of Hill House
For the Richard Matheson novel, see Hell House, made into a film titled The Legend of Hell House.The Haunting of Hill House is a 1959 novel by author Shirley Jackson. Finalist for the National Book Award and considered one of the best literary ghost stories published during the twentieth century,...

, and the character of the real-life edifice Winchester Mystery House
Winchester Mystery House
The Winchester Mystery House is a well-known mansion in California. It once was the personal residence of Sarah Winchester, the widow of gun magnate William Wirt Winchester. It was continuously under construction for 38 years and is reported to be haunted. It now serves as a tourist attraction...

, in San Jose, California
San Jose, California
San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...

.

Argentine production designer Eugenio Zanetti
Eugenio Zanetti
Eugenio Zanetti is an Argentine dramatist, painter, film set designer, and theater and opera director.Zanetti was born in Córdoba, Argentina...

 (Restoration - 1995 and What Dreams May Come
What Dreams May Come (film)
What Dreams May Come is a 1998 American supernatural drama film, starring Robin Williams, Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Annabella Sciorra. The film is based on the 1978 novel of the same name by Richard Matheson, and was directed by Vincent Ward. The title is taken from a line in Hamlet's To be, or not to...

- 1998) oversaw the set designs.

Filming

Harlaxton Manor
Harlaxton Manor
Harlaxton Manor, built in 1837, is a manor house in Harlaxton, Lincolnshire, England. Its architecture, which combines elements of Jacobean and Elizabethan styles with symmetrical Baroque massing, renders the mansion unique among surviving Jacobethan manors....

, in England, was used as the exterior of Hill House. The billiard room scene was filmed in the Great Hall of the manor, while many of the interior sets were built inside the dome-shaped hangar that once housed The Spruce Goose, near the permanently docked RMS Queen Mary
RMS Queen Mary
RMS Queen Mary is a retired ocean liner that sailed primarily in the North Atlantic Ocean from 1936 to 1967 for the Cunard Line...

steamship, in Long Beach, California
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...

. The kitchen scenes were filmed at Belvoir Castle
Belvoir Castle
Belvoir Castle is a stately home in the English county of Leicestershire, overlooking the Vale of Belvoir . It is a Grade I listed building....

.

Critical reception

The Haunting received a negative reception, with most critics citing its weak screenplay, its overuse of horror clichés, and its overdone CGI
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...

 effects. Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

 gave the film a "Rotten" rating of 17%, with the critical consensus stating "Sophisticated visual effects fail to offset awkward performances and an uneven script." Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

 was one of few critics to give the film a positive review, praising the production design in particular. As a result of the negative reviews, it was nominated for five Razzie Awards. However, the film was a financial success, earning $91.2 million domestically and $177.3 million worldwide, with a budget of $80 million.

Razzie Awards

Nominee Category Result
Catherine Zeta-Jones
Catherine Zeta-Jones
Catherine Zeta-Jones, CBE, is a British actress. She began her career on stage at an early age. After starring in a number of United Kingdom and United States television films and small roles in films, she came to prominence with roles in Hollywood movies such as the 1998 action film The Mask of...

Worst Actress
Worst Screen Couple
Lili Taylor
Lili Taylor
Lili Anne Taylor is an American actress notable for her appearances in such award-winning indie films as Mystic Pizza, Say Anything..., Short Cuts and I Shot Andy Warhol, and the acclaimed TV show Six Feet Under....

David Self
David Self
-Current projects:David Self is writing two separate screenplays for films based on superheroes Deathlok and Captain America. The screenwriter also wrote an early draft based on another superhero, Namor...

Worst Screenplay
Jan de Bont
Jan de Bont
Jan de Bont is a Dutch cinematographer, producer, and film director.-Early life and career:De Bont was born, one of 17 children, to a Roman Catholic family in Eindhoven, Netherlands. His earliest work after studying at the Amsterdam Film Academy was with the Dutch avant garde director Adriaan...

Worst Director
Donna Roth Worst Picture
Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson
Colin Henry Wilson is a prolific English writer who first came to prominence as a philosopher and novelist. Wilson has since written widely on true crime, mysticism and other topics. He prefers calling his philosophy new existentialism or phenomenological existentialism.- Early biography:Born and...

Susan Arthur
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