Ghost Story Loses Sense

by Jason R. Hewlett

As many of you will be now aware, I love horror movies. Fear, to me, is one of the purest emotions we can have. It's when you know that you're truly alive (aside from when you're in love that is). So, when a movie comes along claiming to be a chilling film that will scare the pants off you: I'm all over it!

I was hoping that would of been the case with director Jan De Bont's remake of the classic horror movie "The Haunting," which in turn was based on Shirely Jacksons classic horror novel "The Haunting of Hill House." The premise is perfect enough: a scientist studying the effects of fear, here played by Liam Neeson, brings a group of insomniacs (Lili Taylor, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Owen Wilson) to a scary looking house with a bad history. The insomniacs don't know that they are "lab rats" though. They all think they are at Hill House to find out why they have trouble sleeping. Naturally things start to get a little creepy.

The film starts out fine but De Bont and his screenwriter start to lose control of the film when they start to unleash the special effects. To be honest, the special effects are pretty decent but they hinder any real terror. We see everything that's supposed to be scary and it just doesn't work. Scary movies work best when we don't know what's behind the banging door or why the house is creaking.

A perfectly scary haunted house movie is "The Changeling." We slowly learn why the house is haunted and we get creeped out by small, believable things, not big heads forming out of the wall or statues grabbing you. Everything looks, feels, and sounds scarier when you have to make the ghost up in your mind. De Bont didn't do enough haunted house homework. He should have left the effects to the sci-fi movie makers.

Otherwise the film isn't too bad. The cast performs well, especially Catherine Zeta-Jones. All she has to do is walk on screen and her natural charm and charisma take over. She's stolen every movie she's been in and does it again here too,

Of course the house is the true star of the movie. It's a triumph of art direction and looks truly eerie...even though no sane human would build a house like it.

I was disappointed with "The Haunting." However, "The Blair Witch Project" opens next week and was made for no money, has no special effects, and is supposed to be as scary as heck. I'm there!!

4.5 out of 10!