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User Reviews for: The Haunting

CinemaSerf
/10  4 weeks ago
The wealthy "Crain" builds a gothic mansion in a remote part of New England where he plans to house his new wife and daughter. Mysteriously, she doesn't survive long enough to ever move in and as we skip forward almost a century, we find the house bleak and run-down and now inherited by a distant relative of the daughter. It's this house that "Dr. Markway" (Richard Johnson) is determined to investigate. He has convinced the new owner "Mrs Sannerson" (Fay Compton) to allow him and his team to try to prove or disprove for once and for all whether there are such things as ghosts! This house will be the ideal venue for his work and assisted by her rather feckless nephew "Luke" (Russ Tamblyn) as well as the spiritual medium "Theodora" (Clare Bloom) and the young "Nell" (Julie Harris) who seems nervously plugged-in to the house and it's secrets. As night falls, and for the next few days we discover that there are indeed some horrific tales surrounding this edifice involving abuse both physical and psychological amongst it's occupants. Needless to say, these shenanigans profoundly affect the young "Nell" and as she struggles, those fears seem to become contagious as pretty soon everyone is equally spooked by numerous terrifyingly inexplicable activities going on in this house. The question is, though, is this really activity from another dimension or might cold and calculating minds be trying a bit of manipulation. This is a genuinely quite scary adaptation of the book that uses some dimly lit and rather brutal photography, a fair degree of skilfully produced audio and two strong performances from Bloom and Harris to help create an escalating sense of the menacing as panic sets in and rational thinking jumps out of the window. This isn't an horror film that relies on ketchup and jellied eyes, it's a good deal more sophisticated and unlike many of it's contemporaries, it really does cultivate a sense of jeopardy until very near a conclusion that I certainly didn't really anticipate until pretty near the end. On a dark night winter's night with the wind blowing outside, this is a great watch - perhaps not for the anxious.
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