THE HAUNTING (1963)

 

(Director: Robert Wise. Screenwriter: Nelson GIdding. Based on Shirley Jackson’s 1959 gothic horror novel The Haunting of Hill House.)

 

Review

In the supposedly haunted, ninety-year-old Hill House in Massachusetts, Dr. John Markway (Richard Johnson, ZOMBIE, 1979) brings together a group of paranormal researchers to investigate the long-empty abode. In allowing him access, one of the conditions Mrs. Sanderson (Fay Compton), Hill House’s owner, places on Markway is that he must allow her nephew (Luke Sanderson, played by Russ Tamblyn, TWIN PEAKS, 2017) to be present during the investigation. It’s said that no one has stayed in the house for more than two or three days, not since its last owner—who may’ve murdered its previous owner— hanged herself by its spiral staircase inside the library.

Out of the nine investigators Markway invites, two accept. The first is self-assured, darkly funny Theodora, a.k.a. “Theo” (Claire Bloom), a psychic. The second is frangible, psychically sensitive Eleanor “Nell” Lance (Julie Harris, also said to be fragile during HAUNTING’s filming), who’s trying to escape her nasty family. Eleanor, the first to arrive and whose thoughts are voiced for the audience, is immediately drawn to the house in an unhealthy way. Theodora arrives shortly afterward, honestly telling Eleanor that Hill House “wants” her—not that Eleanor minds. She views this macabre outing as a “vacation” and “want[s] to stay, period.”

Dr. Johnson, showing up a few minutes later, informs the two women that “all the doors are hung slightly off-set, which explains why they keep shutting by themselves. . . all the angles are slightly off, not a square corner in the place."

During their initial tour of the claustrophobic, Rococo-style spook house, they meet Luke Sanderson, who doesn’t believe Hill House is inhabited by ghosts. The young man cites “subterranean water”, “atmospheric pressure”, “sunspots” and “electric currents” as the reasons its “disturbances”. The film’s tone is light, humorous, the house well-lit with no shadowy corners.

Later that night, Eleanor—around whom much of the paranormal activity centers—wakes to loud and violent pounding on the walls and her bedroom door, noises that terrify Theo as well. It’s during these scenes that darkness reappears (early scenes relating to the house’s history were shadow-drenched), a tonal, menacing shift furthered by HAUNTING’s sound department, with odd noises and the faint sound of a woman’s mocking laughter.

From there, the situation worsens with more overt manifestations (human or supernatural?), becoming more intense and dreadful. Will any of them leave the house whole, healthy?

HAUNTING, an excellent psychological (and G-rated!) film, with lots of odd tracking shots and pans, constantly roving cameras, and low angle shot, something director Robert Wise and cinematographer Davis Boulton (MODESTY BLAISE, 1966) worked out. These shots and other visual tricks heighten the effect of HAUNTING’s physical aspects (credit interior designer Elliot Scott and set decorator John Jarvis). Humphrey Searle’s well-timed, often nuanced score, along with its actors, complete the overall effect of the film.

 

All of HAUNTING’s players are excellent, from Harris’s volatile Eleanor to Lois Maxell’s ghost-doubting Grave Markway, Dr. Markway’s wife. (Many filmgoers know Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny in fourteen James Bond films, starting with DR. NO, 1962). All of these actors embody and/or lighten (when necessary) the emotional intensity of the expansive, sensory-oppressive manse, in one of the best entries in the spook house genre.

 

Deep(er) filmic dive

According to IMDb, director Robert Wise shot HAUNTING (a title suggested by source-book author Shirley Jackson) in black and white because it added to the “rich atmospheric quality” of the film.

Julie Harris said the film censors dictated that Theo must never touch Eleanor, to downplay Theo’s lesbian attraction to Eleanor. In spite of this, they touched or sat close to each other several times in the film.

Fans of the hard rock band White Zombie might recognize their sampling of a line of dialogue from HAUNTING in their song “Super-Charger Heaven” (off their 1995 ASTRO-CREEP: 2000 album), specifically Dr. Markway’s line “Now I know the supernatural is something that isn’t supposed to happen, but it does happen.”

Russ Tamblyn, in an uncredited role, played a psychiatrist in the streaming Netflix series THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE (2018).

Director/screenwriter Ti West is said to be a fan of HAUNTING. His first film, THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL (2009) is a copycat-title nod to the title given to HAUNTING when originally released in France.

LAKE OF THE DEAD (1958)

 

(a.k.a LAKE OF THE DAMNED; director/screenwriter: Kåre Bergstrøm)

Review

In August 1958, a group of longtime friends head to a lakeside cabin to visit another friend, Bjørn Werner, who’s disappeared. Bjørn’s sister (Liljan), in this group, fears something has happened to him. Others, whose professions range from psychoanalyst to lawyer, dismiss Liljan’s fears.

When they arrive at the lake and cabin, Bjørn and his dog (Spot) are nowhere to be seen. The cabin door seems to open as if of its own accord, but the friends shake it off. With them is a local constable (Bråten), who helps them investigate Bjørn’s disappearance. Bråten tells them about the legend of the lake, cabin and the cabin’s former occupants, a hundred years ago─Tore Gråvik, a man with a wooden left leg, lusted after his sister, and when she took up with another man, he killed them before drowning himself in the lake. Since then, the story goes that whoever stays in the cabin will become possessed by Gråvik’s malevolent spirit.

The friends debate what to do next, each of them representing and stating their professional outlooks and making accusations, even as further weirdness occurs, e.g., a recurring, distinctive footprint around the lake and several characters’ efforts, some sleepwalking, others hypnotized, to drown themselves in the lake.

Is someone puppet mastering the situation to hide something about Bjørn’s disappearance? Or is the lake (whose idyllic shots are paired with Gunnar Sønstevold’s melancholic, restrained soundtrack) and its surrounding area haunted by Gråvik and others?

This seventy-seven-minute, black and white Norwegian film, based on André Bjerke’s 1942 mystery-horror novel (he wrote it under the name Bernhard Borge), is a visually striking, excellent work, with sharp, moody cinematography (courtesy of Ragnar Sørenson) and equally sharp editing (Olav Engebretsen). Arne Holm’s well-timed sound effects further LAKE’s effectiveness. Its use of well-acted characters-as-avatars-for-debate-points helps elevate LAKE to greatness, placing it next to spook house films like Robert Wise’s THE HAUNTING (1963) and John Hough’s THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE (1973), as does Bergstrøm’s screenplay and direction.

LAKE’s players include source-novel author André Bjerke as magazine editor Gabriel Mørk.

LAKE is worth your time if you appreciate black and white films that ably mix atmospheric, lots-of-talking mystery punctuated with spooky events and elements, striking visuals, and offbeat endings. You might figure out what’s going on─it’s not difficult to do─but there are enough red herrings that, with a changed scene or two, it could’ve logically gone other ways as well. This is one of my all-time favorite spook house films. Director/screenwriter Nini Bull Robsahm’s remake was released in 2019.

THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE (1944)

 

(Directors: Gunther von Fritsch, billed as Gunther V. Fritsch, and Robert Wise. Screenplay by DeWitt Bodeen.)

Storyline

An imaginative young girl makes friends with a reclusive, old actress and the ghost of her father’s first wife.

 

Review

More than six years after the events of CAT PEOPLE (1942), Alice and Oliver Reed are parents to six-year-old Amy─an imaginative, mostly solitary girl whose often-happy flights of fantasy vex the still-uptight Oliver, remind him of his insane, dead first wife, Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon, reprising her role from the 1942 film).

Amy becomes afternoon sitting-room friends with Mrs. Julia Farren (Julia Dean), an old, reclusive, and tale-telling actress who lives in a big spooky house with her adult, bitter daughter, Barbara (Elizabeth Russell, THE SEVENTH VICTIM, 1943).

Julia gives Amy a “wishing ring.” Later, Amy, wearing the ring in her backyard, asks for a friend, one who’s not mean like the other girls. Irena appears to the six-year-old just as everything around them becomes dreamlike, magical. The ghost of the Serbian fashion designer sings to the girl, soothes her, setting the tone for their future meetings, sometimes in shadowy dreams.

Oliver’s stern concern about his daughter’s wandering mind becomes alarm when Amy finds a badly hidden picture of him and Irena together, then reveals her friendship with the dead woman. Alice is firm, sensitive, and mostly cool-headed (like she was in the 1942 film) about what she calls Amy’s “imaginary friend.”

More drama, involving a blizzard, Amy, Oliver, and the Farrens, follows, culminating in a satisfying, sweet and tone-consistent finish.

This tangentially linked sequel to CAT has a different feel to than its source film. CAT  was about sexual repression. CURSE is about childhood, with its terrors and wonders.

While I like CAT slightly better, CURSE isn’t a lesser film─it’s simply my preference for CAT's themes, as everything in these films works.

 (In conveying childhood joys and fears, the latter cinematic offering is on par with Charles Laughton’s 1955 masterpiece THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER.)

CURSE’s cast and crew nailed it when they put it together. This is Gunther von Fritsch and Robert Wise’s first credited-director feature. DeWitt Bodeen penned the screenplay. (Bodeen also co-wrote the screenplay for SEVENTH and wrote CAT’s script.)

Albert S. D’Agnostino (THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, 1951) and Walter E. Keller (ISLE OF THE DEAD, 1945), who provided art direction in CAT, did so for CURSE, with the same excellent results. Their nuanced, theme-approprite effects are furthered by Nicholas Musuraca’s visually striking cinematography, also seen in SEVENTH and CAT. And Roy Webb’s evocative soundtrack furthers the mood set by the visual aspects of the film, the way he did in SEVENTH and many other films.

The cast is equally good to great. Kent Smith and Jane Randolph reprised their roles as Oliver Reed and Alice Reed (née Moore) in CAT PEOPLE. Ann Carter (I MARRIED A WITCH, 1942) is a delight as Amy Reed, their daughter. Erford Gage (SEVENTH) played “Police Captain.”

CURSE is a quality-consistent, mood-variant and great wrap-up to RKO Pictures’s loosely linked CAT PEOPLE trilogy (which starts with that 1942 film, continues─in a character offshoot way─in SEVENTH, followed by CURSE). Like those other two flicks, this is worth owning.