(1999 remake)
Here's a sample "this took me 5 minutes to write" review, although that's more than this movie deserves anyway.
A lousy remake of a great movie from an even greater novel by Shirley Jackson (the novel was titled "The Haunting of Hill House").
This is one of the worst movies I've ever seen, and not even bad in a funny way, so it wouldn't even qualify as "camp" entertainment. Despite a cast including Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Lili Taylor, the overdone special-effects alone crush this film under their weight. Do yourself a favor, go rent or buy the 1963 original starring Julie Harris and Claire Bloom. THAT film is one of my very favorite ghost movies of all time, is in my personal DVD collection, and a movie I would highly recommend to anyone who loves ghost/horror, especially the older films where subtlety, a great soundtrack, and the viewer's own imagination and fears are employed to great effect.
2 comments:
I've seen this remake on cable. And then afterwards, I asked myself, ''Why is Lili Taylor in this movie? At all?'' Any movie with Owen Wilson isn't worth seeing, agreed. : )
Al, I didn't mention Owen Wilson in the cast of this film because the casting itself is great except for him. I do like generally Wilson but not in this movie, no. The 1963 version of "The Haunting" had Russ Tamblyn (who was also "Riff" in "West Side Story") in the role Owen Wilson played. Tamblyn's performance in the original was much more low-key than Wilson's in the remake.
That brings to mind another problem I had with this remake - that even though the casting was good (except for Wilson), ALL of the actors' performances were over-the-top; not just Wilson's. The other actors are usually good actors (especially Lili Taylor) who went completely overboard; Wilson is not a serious actor in the first place, lol, IMO. Just cute and goofy.
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