“Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within…and whatever walked there, walked alone.” – Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House (1959).
Of all the subgenres of horror, the haunted house story has provided the most opportunities for slow and subtle terror that creeps and crawls its way under the skin and into the psyche. The Old Dark House (1932), The Uninvited (1944), The Innocents (1961), Burnt Offerings (1976), and The Changeling (1980) stand among the best that not only the haunted house film, but all of horror have to offer. For many, the absolute pinnacle of these films is Robert Wise’s 1963 masterpiece of suggestive horror The Haunting. Based on the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, the film owes much to the influences of the past while still carving a way toward the future, is populated by rich and relatable characters, and is a deeply felt tragedy of the longing to matter in this big, lonely world.
Robert Wise came up through the ranks at RKO in the 1940s under the influence and presumably tutelage of its two greatest geniuses: Orson Welles and Val Lewton. The influence of these two mentors is evident onscreen in The Haunting in several ways. The film’s technique is in many ways Wellesian—deep focus, unique camera placement and movement, and the composition of the frame. As in the Orson Welles films Wise worked on as editor, Citizen Kane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), characters are set in different planes of depth within the frame, but all are in focus. They are then surrounded by grandiose set design, in the case of The Haunting, the rather baroque architecture of Hill House, which is not too far removed from the Amberson Mansion. Unfortunately, Wise had a great falling out with this first mentor as the studio forced him to re-edit the picture with a reshot ending without Welles’ involvement. Welles never forgave Wise for it and the two never spoke again. Still, the fingerprints of Welles remained as Wise grew as a filmmaker and his influence is very present in The Haunting.
Like the other great haunted house film of the 1960s, The Innocents, The Haunting is beautifully shot in that greatest and rarest of formats—black and white scope, or full widescreen; Twentieth Century Fox’s Cinemascope in the case of the former and Panavision in the latter. The techniques used are modern extensions of the kinds of pioneering work done by the builders of filmmaking language, and perfected by the masters of the 1930s and 40s. As expert as the technical aspects of the film are, they never detract from the story as is the case in the best Orson Welles films and those of Wise’s other great mentor Val Lewton, who gave him his first opportunity to direct a film with The Curse of the Cat People in 1944, another psychologically subtle film about a haunting.
Lewton’s influence is deeply felt in the way the film’s story is told. Lewton was far more interested in the psychological than the sensational. The horror films made between 1942 and 1946 at RKO by the Lewton unit are ambiguous, character-driven, and suggestive. The horror comes from what is not seen rather than from what is shown on screen. His philosophy was that what the audience imagines is far more horrifying than what the filmmaker can show. This makes Lewton’s films an interactive experience for the audience. Wise would often comment that people would say to him “you made the scariest movie I’ve ever seen, and you didn’t show anything.” This is the key to the continuing effectiveness of The Haunting. As with the best of the Lewton movies, it forces the active participation of the audience in that it provides just enough information and allows the imagination of each viewer to fill in the gaps.
This also allows for the psychological underpinnings of the story to work their way into the mind of each viewer and allows them to place themselves inside the situations on screen, or even behind the eyes of a character. For example, as Eleanor (Julie Harris) stares at the wall as she hears voices coming from the other side in one of the film’s most terrifying sequences, is it her or is it the audience that may or may not see a face forming in the shapes in the carvings on the wall? It happens so subtly that some may not even notice it upon first viewing. We are also allowed to ask questions like “is this all just in Eleanor’s mind?” before having the questions shifted when other evidence is presented. The film refuses to lay its cards on the table for as long as it possibly can, even in the iconic sequence in which the door bulges and flexes from some force behind it in the presence of believers and skeptics alike. That force remains unseen because Wise learned his lessons well from Lewton and perhaps H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe before him—what we imagine is far more horrifying than what we see.
One of the reasons why The Haunting works as well as it does is it is populated by characters who stand at different points on the spectrum of belief in the supernatural. Dr. John Markway (Richard Johnson) believes in the validity of the spirit realm, but wants to prove it scientifically so even the greatest skeptic could not poke holes in his methods and theories. Luke Sanderson (Russ Tamblyn) only believes in how much money he can make on Hill House after he inherits it and sells it off to the highest bidder. Theodora (Claire Bloom), known as Theo, is gifted with extra sensory perception but seems to think this could just be an uncanny ability to read people. In her youth, Eleanor had what Markway describes as “a poltergeist experience” in which “showers of stones fell on your house for three days.” But she brushes it off saying that her mother told her it was just the neighbors throwing rocks. More importantly, Eleanor desperately wants it all to be true, and feels that her inclusion in the Hill House experiment could be the one important thing she has been waiting for all her life. In the final act we are introduced to Markway’s wife Grace (Lois Maxwell) who feels that her husband has been wasting his life and destroying his academic reputation by chasing after ghosts.
These characters also have a great deal in common with those found in Lewton films. As in Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, and The Seventh Victim, the lead characters in The Haunting are women, Eleanor and Theo, who are mirror images of each other. Eleanor, or Nell, is modest, retiring, something of a fragile flower desperate for belonging whose confidence has been chipped away by years of being the sole caregiver for her long-ailing mother. Theo is the opposite—confident, stylish, and in a way rather daring for 1963, openly gay. Same sex female attraction was often buried in the subtext of the Lewton films, specifically the three I mentioned above, but here, one does not need to dig very deep to find it as a key component of Theo. The focus of the film, however, is Eleanor. It is her story, and it is her tragedy.
The Haunting is a film of deep despair. Eleanor, so desperate to belong, so desperate to matter in this cold world, is swindled by a fraud. Not Markway or any of the companions she meets in Hill House, but the house itself. It convinces her that being within its walls is her destiny and her staying there for all time an inevitability. She clings to the line from a song sung in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, “journeys end in lovers meeting,” and she believes that Hill House is her lover, the one who will take her for who she is and not demand anything from her. But Hill House is not a lover as she imagines. It is a killer and a swallower of souls. Everything it does, it does for its own benefit. It is the epitome of “The Bad Place.” It does not give, it only takes.
When we are introduced to Nell, she believes there is something waiting for her that will solve all her problems. Instead, she becomes trapped by an obsession that ultimately destroys her. The film’s chilling final line proves that her loneliness only intensifies after Hill House takes what it wants—“we who walk here walk alone.” This is a change from the last line of the novel which repeats the famous opening that concludes “whatever walked there walked alone.” The change to “we who walk here” makes it all so much more personal. And savage. She is so desperate that her journey will end in lovers meeting, believing that Hill House will complete her that she becomes its willing prey. Instead of finding purpose and belonging, she will spend eternity trapped in solitude.
In various interviews Stephen King has conveyed a story about a phone call with Stanley Kubrick as he was adapting The Shining for what would become his 1980 film. To paraphrase the conversation, Kubrick said something like, “don’t you think that all ghost stories are inherently optimistic because they believe in an afterlife?” King thought about this and responded, “well, what about hell?” to which Kubrick responded, “I don’t believe in hell,” and hung up. This interchange somehow defines for me the conclusion of The Haunting, a film that is decidedly not optimistic about life after death. In the world of the film, an afterlife is proven, but not one of hope and joy, but of silence and abandonment. In the end, Nell seems to be trapped in a kind of hell. It is as if Dante’s ancient words should be inscribed upon the doorframes of Hill (Hell) House—“abandon hope all ye who enter here.” Hill House, not sane, stood for ninety years and may stand for ninety more. And those it takes it owns. And those it owns walk alone.
In Bride of Frankenstein, Dr. Pretorius, played by the inimitable Ernest Thesiger, raises his glass and proposes a toast to Colin Clive’s Henry Frankenstein—“to a new world of Gods and Monsters.” I invite you to join me in exploring this world, focusing on horror films from the dawn of the Universal Monster movies in 1931 to the collapse of the studio system and the rise of the new Hollywood rebels in the late 1960’s. With this period as our focus, and occasional ventures beyond, we will explore this magnificent world of classic horror. So, I raise my glass to you and invite you to join me in the toast.
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