The Haunting (1963)

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Blistering performances.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

A scientist doing research on the paranormal invites some people to a haunted house for some studies. Only three show up, 2 women and 1 man. The house had many scary back stories for around 90 years.When it comes to horror, jump scares, ugly faces, gore.. blood etc are the usual stuff. Very few films stay out of these cliché. Great director Robert Wise, was successful in creating a great horror film without the usual stuff. Beautifully filmed in black and white, it gives depth to the horror mood. Actors performance also added to the flavor, especially Julie Harris.Please stay away from the star cast remake in 1999. Watch the original version of 1963.A definitely must watch. Highly recommended.#KiduMovie

I saw this as a pre-teen about 47 years ago, and while I'm not easily 'led', this film has been imprinted in my mind ever since - as a classic. The audience was fifty school kids on a Saturday night, running on 16mm film... Far more worthy than the more recent slasher genre, or the remake with Catherine Zeta Jones (but she's nice to look at!). Don't go in expecting CGI or effects. Have dinner, a glass of wine then watch it in a darkened room without distractions. A great example to show film students how script, acting and direction are far more important than colour, zombies or other 'horror' affectations. Just good solid filmmaking and will keep you up all night - if you 'get it' unlike some earlier reviews!

Arriving at a supposedly haunted mansion for an experiment on fear study, a group of strangers and their over-seer are witness to an extraordinary amount of physical evidence that forces them to believe the house to be haunted and must find a way of getting out of the building alive.While this one does have some great work here there's some troubling parts as well. There's a lot here that works with this one in dealing with the theory of the supernatural that runs through the film, as this one preys upon the concept of the victim's own imagination to play tricks on what's going on. The emphasis on her guilt and sensitivity, buoyed by the history of the house itself, makes this such a fun time with how the early supernatural scenes from the odd creaks and groans and disembodied voices heard throughout here but also in all the teasing and joking around that soon turn into actual haunting sequences as they explore the house all manage to give this one quite a healthy sense of fear here, while it's big haunting scenes are the main focus. The bedroom scenes here are absolutely chilling as the utterly pounding footsteps echoing throughout the hallways into the room next-door where they begin scratching on the walls to an absolutely fevered pitch that then dies down just as quickly as it appeared, and a second scene where the girls are alone in the room overhearing the echoing footsteps return into the next-door room again and the muffled conversations to the frightened girl prompt their own individual response to the situation before the truly classic hand-holding gag that makes this quite fun. As well, the big centerpiece sequence here is the encounter in the parlor where the pounding footsteps appear leading into the door to the hallway outside which leads to it pushing against the door from outside with enough force to push the wooden door in with quite a powerful display all in front of everyone which gives this as much as it does. That this is the lone haunting done in front of others and is such a thrilling and creative moment makes for quite a powerful scene as a whole. The other big plus here is the actual house itself, which is quite spooky and appropriate setting here for the type of action portrayed which is quite an impressive task, and uses its setting to great effect. These are good enough to make this hold off the few minor flaws here, which comes from the rather bland and drawn-out pace here as while this one isn't boring its' way too long for how little action is present. The encounters are spaced out throughout here in such a big amount of time that it never really settles into a groove about how to play off the dreariness of the pace here. as well, there's also the fact that the films' psychological issues here are considerably downplayed into appearing so clumsy here that the inclusion is really troubling. Otherwise, this one works rather well overall.Today's Rating-PG: Mild Violence.

A scientist doing research on the paranormal invites two women to a haunted mansion. One of the participants soon starts losing her mind.So, Martin Scorsese says this is his favorite horror film. What does that mean exactly? I do not know. It is indeed a great horror film, because it relies on a slow build up and there is very little that is outright scary or frightening. This is all atmosphere.What makes it even better is the cast. Richard Johnson is excellent, and Julie Harris is always nice to see. Russ Tamblyn, though, is perhaps among the more interesting actors of his generation, with decades of great roles and films under his belt. I would watch this again and again just for him.