Whenever I say The Haunting is my favorite scary film, people think I mean THIS version--the 1999 remake with Liam Neeson and Catherine Zeta-Jones. (And something I feel bad for even today is when a friend of mine wanted to watch my favorite films, and when it came to The Haunting, she rented the remake instead of the original, thinking that was the version I meant. Whoops.) You know the expression less is more? Jan De Bont should have thought of that before remaking one of the most subtle horror films of all time and turning it into a silly special-effects exercise! Man is this one bad. I mean, REALLY bad. And the odd thing is, it starts out okay, like its going to be an updated version of the original story. The first half-hour or so looks kind of promising (except why the hell are the characters being fooled into thinking theyre at this strange house as part of an insomnia-study?), and the first night in the house recalls a similar scene in the original....But then were introduced to the CGI ghost kids, and its all downhill from there, as were given wall-to-wall CGI effects (and particularly bad, poorly-rendered CGI at that) and also thrusts us into a badly-written, horribly-crafted second half that only gets sillier and sillier. There are good ghosts and bad ghosts, and the good ghosts look like creepy Cabbage Patch Kids and do nothing but moan Ohhh Elllleanorrrr.... and the bad ghosts arent much better, as all they do is try to give parts of the house a facial feature and all sorts of other silly stuff. Give me a break. In the original film, Eleanor was the focus of most of the haunting and while the others couldnt see or hear most of what she did, they still knew it was a haunted house. In the remake, none of them believe in the haunting, and while Eleanor is subjected to many terrors, the others are amazingly slow to catch on. How can you miss something amongst all this crazy imagery?? And the ending is the worst offense of them all. It comes as a slap to the original films face, and it made me just want to punch this remake in the gut. If you thought it was bad enough already, this is just horrible. The psychological tension of the original film is thrown out the window for more CGI, more crappy storytelling, and bad filmmaking. Its just dumb, dumb, dumb. What positive things can I say about this film? Only two. One thing is Lili Taylor is very good as Eleanor (actually, the acting in this movie isnt all bad, with the exception of Liam Neeson who I dont think is even trying). Another is the set design is unbelievable; the locations and sets look fascinating, and theyre definitely enough to keep attention for good chunks of the film. I usually respect the late Roger Eberts opinions, but I still cant believe he recommended this mess. He must have loved the set design that much.
Posted on: Thu, 12 Jun 2014 15:21:32 +0000