The Haunting (1963)

A KFP Guest Review by Nathan Sharp

NetFlix 3.6/5
IMDB 7.7/10
Guest Reviewer Rating: 4.5/5
(My Rating: 10/10)

A professor of the paranormal assembles a team of people with psychic experience to study Hill House, a rambling mansion with an evil history that was "born bad".

This is another KFP guest review, this time of my favorite haunted house movie of all time.  Yes, I am unabashedly a Haunting fanboy and it's one of the few perfect horror films ever made, in my opinion.  I will probably write my own review of it eventually, and have a couple of comments to add here (in blue), but for now let's turn you over to our guest reviewer, Nathan Sharp:

The unwritten rules of horror movies have changed drastically over the years. The horror comedies of the 1980s gave way to Scream and Scary Movie, polarizing horror: either a film was a ruthless deconstruction of horror in an often-mocking tone, or it was a barrage of jump cuts, mirror scares, and sudden noises or musical stings. This latter category moved horror movies from scary to merely startling - the ghost jumping out of the dark and shouting vs the gradual realization that something is following you, matching you step for step, stopping when you pause, and only making itself known when you start walking again. 

The Haunting is a film from a much better time in horror movie history, one in which the audience is expected not only to pay attention (rather than being fed exposition) but also to care about - and know about - its players. This is a movie where the characters matter more than the ghost or special effects, and the film is all the better for it.

 

Nell, our heroine, is all but trapped in a toxic environment and sees her trip to Hill House, where she will help investigate suspected paranormal activity, as a vacation and escape from her life. Seeing Nell, a caring, sweet, but incredibly fragile woman, run headlong into terror and refuse to leave because it's better than what she left behind, is heartbreaking. Nell is helpless, not because of the horror movie tradition that things are supposed to be scarier when the victim is a woman, but because she's spent her entire life being emotionally abused and has no idea how to take care of herself.  The audience is genuinely concerned for and invested in Nell, and seeing The Haunting play out leaves us just as afraid for her and the other characters as they are for their own safety.

(Nathan touches on something here that I have always loved about The Haunting - That there are no "cannon fodder" characters.  No one is there specifically to die, and the viewer becomes invested in the heroine hugely because... unlike so many horror films... she is fully developed and we believe in her as a person.  But then, they all are - There's Markway, so brilliant and bold and yet emotionally a dunce.  Luke, dashing and wisecracking yet ultimately fragile.  And my favorite, Theo, so worldly wise and savvy and caustic and sharp.  The relationship between Theo and Nell could spur an entire analysis on its own.)

This is a movie that sets a clear tone and pace and refuses to deviate from it, expecting the audience to remain invested and pay attention. The technical limitations of the 1960s mean the movie relied on sets, lighting, and very dramatic and impressive camera angles. Because all the sets had to be built, they are used to their fullest potential and it is a great success. The camera movements especially are fun to watch for anyone else who is interested in how movies are made. The film also has great sound design, and really is best watched alone at night, in the dark.

The writing and acting are both very impressive, as should be expected of a character-driven movie of any kind. The film succeeds on both a technical and personal level: it draws you in the way Hill House itself does, and I consider it far superior to most of the horror films made since its release.

(Needless to say, I agree with all of the above, and if I were ever to make out a list of my top horror films, The Haunting would certainly be in the top five, maybe top 2...  There have been other great haunted house movies, like The Legend of Hell House, The Changeling, The Others, The Woman in Black, heck, even Aiden Quinn's little-known Haunted...  but for me, The Haunting will always be the unrivaled king of such films.)

Children of the Stones (1977)

NetFlix 2.8/5
IMDB 7.2/10
My Rating: 7.5/10

An astrophysicist and his son investigate the standing stones of secluded village Milbury and find the people eerily happy and under the control of the creepy Hendrick.


I had NEVER heard of this before, and for some bizarre reason it has only been rebroadcast once since its original airing in '77, but it's now out on DVD and Netflix has it for rental. If you can pick up the single DVD (all 7 eps are on 1 disc), I recommend it highly, providing you are a patient viewer and well-attuned to the sort of no-budget ambiance of 60's-70's British TV.  Fortunately, it eschews FX for the most part and depends instead on a smart screenplay and a slow-building atmosphere of tension that makes it seem much more than just "kid's telly", as it was originally marketed.

It's the story of a professor and his son moving to a small village that's completely surrounded by a circle of standing stones, and populated by strangely cheerful villagers under the thrall of the Tall Man... excuse me, Hendrick, the town's Big Hat. He's the guy in the poster above and geez, what a performance. His resemblance to the Tall Man from Phantasm is unnerving, but Hendrick is a happy fellow, no Scrimmian growls of "BOYYYY".  In fact, he's positively delighted that we've come to visit him in his weird little village with its weird little customs.   This is the first clue that our intrepid leads should run away screaming, but then we wouldn't have this disturbing tale to revel in.

It's a lot like 70's Doctor Who in style - plot-heavy, talky, lots of running back and forth to the same few sets, few FX, mood-heavy - but it's still enjoyably creepy and really well done. I have to give special bonus points to the soundtrack, which is composed entirely of human voices - it's a chorus doing moaning and wailing and multi-level harmony, rather than the usual instrumental music, and it works great to give the whole thing a really disturbing feel. Here's the music from the intro and the first few moments of the series opener, which nicely sums up the feel of the whole show:

Much is made of the old Doctor Who shows sending kiddies hiding behind the couch, but I never found them scary.  This, on the other hand, is a little unsettling even to me as an adult, and despite being marketed as a YA show, in many ways it's perfectly enjoyable for adults also...  In fact, probably more so, because I doubt you could get modern kids to even sit still for this, given how slowly it moves.  ADD teens will nod off during the long scenes of characters standing in the library and talking - Static cameras, puzzle-solving, debate, etc.  Imagine, if you will, The Wicker Man recreated as a miniseries for children...  with perhaps a bit of Stepford Wives stirred in.  The village's "Happy Ones" are Prisoner-eerie, and the mix of science and folk magic and space/time distortions give it a prototype-Lost ambiance.  I'd definitely recommend this to anyone who's a fan of off-kilter television such as old Who, Twin Peaks, and the like. 

And as a tidbit of personal info, I was much inspired by the show's logo shot when I designed the title graphic for our workshop's Ligne Bretagne pipes - Spot the similarities!

The KFP Calendar is up!

Hello everyone!  This is your humble narrator here, with news that the long-in-the-process KFP Horror & Fantasy Calendar is now posted and free for subscription.  Get it in time for Halloween season!  You know you want to be able to look at your iCal or Google Calendar all through October and know exactly which date Halloween was released on, or Black Christmas, or The Day the Earth Stood Still, or just which day is Edward Van Sloan's birthday.  The KFP calendar will give you enough movie-watching suggestions to keep you busy half the year.  To get it, just click on that new banner over to the right to go to our calendar page, where you can subscribe, send/leave suggestions, and get banners to share.  I look at this as a community project, so PLEASE grab one of our banners and tack it up on your own site, and send in your suggestions for dates we've left off - It will make the calendar more fun for everyone!