News
Horror in Black and White: ‘The Haunting’ (1963)
In 1961, Robert Wise was finishing up post-production on West Side Story, when he happened upon a review of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House in Time magazine. Intrigued, he sought out a copy of the book and upon reading decided he must bring it to the big screen.
He spent some time talking to the author and had soon optioned the rights to adapt the novel as a film.
It has been said that during their conversations, he asked if she had ever thought of a different title for the novel, and she replied that the only other title she’d ever considered was simply The Haunting.
The rest, as they say, was history.
Wise brought the novel to screenwriter Nelson Gidding who soon found himself crafting what would become one of the greatest haunted house films ever created.
I’ve wanted to write about this film for this series since I started writing about Horror in Black and White a few weeks ago, and today felt like the day.
You see, Robert Wise, rightly, decided that black and white was the perfect medium for this particular story because the monochromatic look would enhance the depth of the shadows and increase the tension of the psychological elements of the story.
When you’re right, you’re right.
For the uninitiated or for those only familiar with the more recent Netflix adaptation, Wise’s film told the story of Dr. John Markway (Richard Johnson) who, in an attempt to study the paranormal, invites psychically sensitive Nell (Julie Harris) and fully clairvoyant Theodora (Claire Bloom) to spend a weekend at Hill House.
It is said the house is one of the most haunted in the world, and Markway hopes that the gifted women will stir the spirits of the house to present themselves.
Along for the ride are Luke Sanderson (Russ Tamblyn), who stands to inherit the house, and Grace Markway (Lois Maxwell). The latter turns up unannounced and fully in doubt of her husband’s work.
The house is soon alive with echoing booming sounds in the night, and timid, mousy Nell, who wasn’t wholly stable to begin with, soon finds herself the focal point of an increasingly dangerous haunting.
Harris is vulnerable and raw as Nell. While filming, she kept herself isolated from the rest of the cast, rarely joining them for dinner or to chat during filming breaks.
Apocryphally, it has been said that she suffered terrible depression during the shoot, but Claire Bloom later recounted that Harris turned up at her home bearing gifts and an explanation for her behavior.
Bloom had been worried that Harris kept her distance because the character of Theo was a lesbian. In fact, it was this particular part of the character is what drew Bloom to the role.
By the 60s, the film industry had begun to loosen some of the stringent requirements of its past, and queer-coding, though still alive and well, was giving way to queer characters–though their portrayals were still problematic.
Theo was an exception. While certainly coded in some respects, she was not in any way what had been presented previously. She was not a “hard” woman, nor was she predatory.
On the contrary, she was a lovely, sophisticated woman, and while her sexuality is only hinted at throughout the film, it’s hard to deny who she is when Nell, in a fit of rage calls her one of “nature’s mistakes.” The epithet was a common term at the time.
It’s interesting to note that in an early version of the film there was a scene which involved a recent breakup of Theo’s. Wise went so far as to film the scene, but unfortunately he was forced to cut it.
Harris and Bloom were phenomenal in their respective roles and the rest of the cast was equally good, but the true star of the show was house itself, and the ways in which it seemed to come alive. Much of that has to do with Wise’s direction.
With sound and shadow, he created a terrifying claustrophobic environment without ever actually revealing the spirits of Hill House. In fact, it is incredible just how well those two elements work together in this film.
The shadows seem to elongate and move while deafening sounds from the heart of the house itself unsettle the viewer as much as the actors onscreen.
Furthermore, Wise used lenses that gave a curved appearance to the walls, creating an even more unsettling skewed view of the sets.
The film opened to mixed reviews and an average box office for the time, but its popularity has grown over the years with a devoted fan base.
The film was later remade in the late 90s starring Lili Taylor, Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Owen Wilson, but it lacked the spark of the original.
The Haunting is available for streaming via Vudu and other platforms. Check out the trailer below and for more Horror in Black and White, check out our other entries including Cat People and Strait-Jacket!
'Civil War' Review: Is It Worth Watching?
Follow our new YouTube channel "Mysteries and Movies" here.
Movies
‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments
It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.
We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.
“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”
That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”
Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:
'Civil War' Review: Is It Worth Watching?
Follow our new YouTube channel "Mysteries and Movies" here.
Movies
‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening
Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.
Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.
Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.
Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.
Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.
The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.
'Civil War' Review: Is It Worth Watching?
Follow our new YouTube channel "Mysteries and Movies" here.
News
Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date
Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.
Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.
These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:
According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”
Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.
Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.
'Civil War' Review: Is It Worth Watching?
Follow our new YouTube channel "Mysteries and Movies" here.
-
News6 days ago
Original Blair Witch Cast Ask Lionsgate for Retroactive Residuals in Light of New Film
-
Movies7 days ago
Spider-Man With a Cronenberg Twist in This Fan-Made Short
-
News4 days ago
Perhaps the Scariest, Most Disturbing Series of The Year
-
Movies5 days ago
New F-Bomb Laden ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Trailer: Bloody Buddy Movie
-
News5 days ago
Russell Crowe To Star in Another Exorcism Movie & It’s Not a Sequel
-
Lists4 days ago
Thrills and Chills: Ranking ‘Radio Silence’ Films from Bloody Brilliant to Just Bloody
-
Movies5 days ago
‘Founders Day’ Finally Getting a Digital Release
-
Movies5 days ago
New ‘The Watchers’ Trailer Adds More to the Mystery
You must be logged in to post a comment Login