The Haunting - paholaistalo

If you see The Haunting not as a horror movie, but as a ghost story for the whole family, you’ll be okay with it. As a horror blockbuster with a stellar cast, which is what it was supposed to be, it’s a fiasco. (11.04.2002)

If I accept the strange idea of putting insomniacs in an abandoned mansion as part of research and turn a blind eye to it, this film still can't be considered either a good ghost story or a horror movie. It does have a nice soundtrack and EXTRAORDINARY sets, similar in impact and size to those you see in old Universal horror films, and the film is appropriately bathed in them for the first hour, but that's where the positives end. What happens in the last 40 minutes or so is something I've perhaps never seen in a high-budget studio film, which are usually thought over in dramaturgical detail. That sequence of bad creative decisions where everything that could go wrong did. The logic and common sense of all the characters went to hell, there's confused running hither and yon and screaming like little kids, and despite the already advanced CGI capabilities at the time, it has far worse visual effects than films a few decades older. Sure, the fault is already in the script, the central (poorly acted) character played by Lili Taylor and her backstory, but de Jan de Bont's shoddy craftsmanship doesn't add anything to it. (31.03.2024)

Solid atmosphere and actors, but hand in hand with a repulsive final quarter-hour, it is truly a horrifying experience. (26.09.2006)

I promise I'll listen to my friends next time they give me advice like "Don't watch The Haunting, it's stupid, a waste of time". God, that WAS stupid. To the point it surprised me. A horror movie that's not scary... mysteries that aren't mysterious... actors who barely act at all...basically crap. One star for the design of the (un)haunted mansion, the second for Goldsmith's music, which does make something out of the zero atmosphere here and there. But there's not much there. (24.05.2010)