The Haunting (1963)

 Robert Wise's "The Haunting"


Adapted from the 1959 novel "The Haunting of Hill House" by Shirley Jackson, the 1963 Robert Wise directed "The Haunting" centers on a group of paranormal investigators who spend the week at a haunted house. Although the film is meant as a horror film, it leans more into the branches of the psychological horror than tactile horror. That being said, the film remains a classic of the genre.

I, however, was very uninspired by the film. Firstly, whether it was the original Jackson novel that is to blame for this or the screenwriter, but I believe that much of the film doesn't quite make sense tonally. Plot-wise and structurally, it couldn't be more coherently simple. However, the insufferability of the protagonist renders all other plot points unfeasible. I simply could not get past the protagonist's lack of psychological coherence and the lack of logic in the remaining relationships they build throughout the story.



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