THE HAUNTING (1999)

Starring: Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Owen Wilson, Lili Taylor, Bruce Dern, Marian Seldes. Screenplay by David Self, based on the novel "The Haunting of Hill House" by Shirley Jackson. Directed by Jan de Bont. USA. 112 minutes.

Despite sharing the same title, this Haunting isn't a remake of the Robert Wise film, although it is based on the same novel. "The Haunting of Hill House" stands as one of the true masterpieces of Gothic horror literature, a superbly well executed exercise in both psychological and supernatural terror that will leave even the most seasoned horror fetishist trying to scrape off the goosepimples for days, if not weeks. Jackson wrote one of those exceedingly rare novels that slowly creeps up and winds itself around you like an ivy vine around a tree and doesn't release its hold on you without putting up a hell of a fight. Would that the same could be said for this latest big-screen adaptation.

As dismayed as I was to hear that Jan de Bont - the same Jan de Bont who directed the less-than-subtle "action" movies Speed and Twister, I like to think that I walked into the midnight showing I attended with a receptive mind and open heart. After all, whi the aforementioned were inherently dopey movies they were also surprisingly entertaining and well-executed for their particular genre. Much as I wanted to hate them, they won me over despite myself. (Always high praise, when a film can do that.)  But, alas, this Haunting is exactly the kind of brainless, soulless, gutless, uninvolving, bloated, big-budget piece of Hollywood Product that de Bont's previous films so adeptly avoided being.

Now, I'm no stickler for film versions of novels being faithful to their source. After all, a film is a film and novel is a novel - we're dealing with entirely different species of animals here. Aside from the first few minutes The Haunting (which was shot as The Haunting of Hill House before undergoing a last minute title change) actually bears a closer resemblance to Richard Matheson's "Hell House" (which itself was turned into an excellent movie called The Legend of Hell House, much worthier of your time).

The film's sole positive feature is Lili Taylor's utterly convincing performance  as the story's beleagured heroin Eleanor Vance, a walking wound who is slowly sucked into the maelstrom of evil that is Hill House. Taylor captures the despair and later the rapture of Jackson's character masterfully. Neeson, Jones and Wilson all seem to be going through the motions as if they were doing leg exercises.

The set design for Hill House (accurately described in the film as "Charles Foster Cane meets the Addams Family") is breathtaking to be sure, but de Bont simply doesn't know what to do with it. In the hands of a Mario Bava, who could infuse a generic castle corridor or misty cobblestone street with an aura of inescapable terror, something wonderful might have happened, but de Bont (despite his excellent cinematography on Paul Verhoeven's medieval epic Flesh and Blood) ain't no Bava. Atmospherics are not his strong point, and if this genre is about anything it's about atmosphere. This Haunting is so bland and lifeless that it can't muster the energy to riase a single solitary goosepimple even when it's trying it hardest to scare the shit out of you. The computer generated ghosts sure look mighty expensive, but I still have yet to see an animated GIF that can inspire fear.

Perhaps lamest of all is the explanation that is given for the supernatural occurances that are part and parcel to Hill House's nature. I saw it coming a mile away and simply sighed with indignance when it was thrown out with all the finese of  a towel being tossed into a boxing ring. One of the great things about Jackson's original novel is that you never really do find out exactly what it is that's going on in Hill House. It doesn't seem "haunted" so much as it is simply the definitive Bad Place. (I was left with the impression that the house itself was "alive" or possessed by a malignant entity that existed there long before the house was even built.) But here not only do we get an explanation but one that's as limp as a wet noodle. The loud, explosive, gratuitous climax just fizzles despite all its Sturm und Drang, topped off with a sequence that seems equal parts Ghost and Touched by an Angel.

*sigh* Oh well, here's hoping  the next time Hollywood decides to tackle Hill House they'll give the job to someone whose talents are better suited to the task.

Final rating: ** Two Haunted Houses Full of Maggots.

* Dead meat, ripe n' reeking.
** Moribund, but showing a slight flicker of life.
*** Good and healthy.
**** Brimming with vitality!