Rating: 
Summary: "SURVIVING A BAD HEIRLOOM DAY on the verge ............."
Review: NOTHING compares or ever will! This VHS version is quite good, excellent DOLBY HI-FI sound, the cropping from widescreen is not too bad, at least we do see complete faces on screen, different impact though. The widescreen version gives us the the spirit's [?] distorted point of view - now, missing. Can't wait for a remastered DVD/Surround version. Really a "mood-piece" it has not dated since 1963 - they're all still very comtemporary, especially elegant Claire Bloom [in vintage Mary Quant couture]. It's refreshing to see performances [and not attitudes] again - but with Robert Wise as director, who can fail? The look pays homage to Jean Epstein's "The Fall of the House of Usher". The unspoken moments between Bloom and Richard Johnson speak volumes [that's acting folks!] Brilliantly edited, it moves well - [so does the evolving house for that matter, and just how many room are there?] Julie Harris is heart-breaking as the lost Nell - the lone spinster looking for her spectral Mr. Gooodbar. [A fragility equally impressive with Dean in "East of Eden".] Russ Tamblyn also - very effective as the psychic cynic. Favorite moments? The weeeping wallpaper in the moonlit room, and that special and quite unexpected "frozen breath" moment. No CGI or gags involved - just plain good old-time film-making. Other "on the verge of a ......" recommendations? "The Innocents", "Repulsion" - they're ALL soul sisters....... [PS. Don't share - see these alone! In the dark.]
Rating: 
Summary: The Haunting (1963), would be best veiwed in Widescreen!
Review: I love Horror films and thought I'd seen the best of them. I rented The Haunting in 1995 and was frightfully pleased! This is one of the few films that made me hide under the covers as I watched it alone, in the night, in the dark. Robert Wise incredibly used lighting and camera tricks to create eerie shadows, unlike it's remake. Julie Harris is splendid and I highly praise this film! Widesreen DVD is a must (when it is released). Read the novel "The Haunting of Hill House" and you'll find Wise's version more true to the book than the remake.
Rating:
Summary: Better than then the remake
Review: This movie delves very much deeper into the characters real motives than does the remake. The remake was all geared around special effects, but this one wasn't and it was still creepy. I love the character of Theo, she is so totally bohemian, although she should have worn clothes that were less drab. If thou art a big fan of the book this is the movie for you, because it didn't change the ending. But the house in the new one was better, much better than the one in this one. And then there is the matter of Luke. For some reason he didn't look as young as he was described. The movie isn't scarey, but it will cause you to think about things.
Rating:
Summary: Eleanor comes home in the greatest haunted house film
Review: Still the best haunted house film, "The Haunting of Hill House" has the virtues of director Robert Wise and an excellent adaptation of Shirley Jackson's novel by Nelson Gidding. Hill House was built by Hugh Crain and its legacy of death includes both of his wives, his daughter Abigail and her lover. Dr. Markway (Richard Johnson) hears of the house's reputation and decides it is the perfect locale to investigate. Markway brings with him a team: Eleanor "Nell" Vance (Julie Harris), a neurotic spinster who had a terrifying poltergeist encounter as a child; Theodora (Claire Bloom), a strong willed psychic; and Luke Sannison (Russ Tamblyn), who intends to inherit the house from the current owners. The house assaults the group their first night in Hill House, although all of the phenomena are suggested by sound effects rather than depicted with cheap specific effects. Meanwhile, the group is experiencing its own strange vibes. Theodora, a lesbian, is interested in Nell, who is totally oblivious to this and has eyes for Markway, a married man who also has no clue. More importantly, Nell is clearly the target of whatever forces are at work in Hill House. "The Haunting" is a masterpiece of atmosphere and suspense, with the performance of Julie Harris at the heart of the film. Both of the female characters are vastly more complex than the pair of males, and Harris and Bloom's performances dominate throughout. The recent "remake" of this film with its over abundance of special effects only serves to heighten the strengths of the original when the horror is created in your mind and not just left on the screen. "The Haunting" is a true horror classic, filmed in glorious black-and-white. This is truly a movie to watch late at night with all of the lights out. Just don't expect to get any sleep afterward...
Rating:
Summary: Good but flawed horror movie
Review: I should start by stating clearly that The Haunting is definitely among the better horror movies in the "haunted house" sub-genre - and a darn sight better and more intelligent than Jan de Bont's moronic remake. Any serious horror collection would have to include the original alongside other superior counterparts like The Changeling, The Uninvited, The Legend of Hell House, The Innocents and Haunted. HOWEVER - and the film's considerable body of devoted fans seem to wilfully ignore this - it is significantly flawed by a number of jarring misjudgments in narrative and performance. Chief amongst these is Julie Harris' lead performance - a whiny, distracting and, in the end, thoroughly irritating turn that only further alienates you from the already irritating, self-absorbed, totally unsympathetic character she plays. Secondly, director Robert Wise's decision to flood the entire movie with neurotic first-person voice-over mumblings from Harris' character is near-fatal, further weighing a potentially great movie down with a poor story-telling device linked directly to the LEAST sympathetic character in the movie. Having said that, Richard Johnson is a delight as the cocksure, manipulative parapsychologist who brings the group to Hill House, as is Russ Tamblyn in the rather thankless, patronising role of all-too-obvious representative of "the younger generation". Hill House itself is well-shot - a dark, brooding and evil behemoth that breathes terror through its very walls. In the end though, it is the strength of Shirley Jackson's source novel that ultimately prevails and the movie accordingly has its rewards - albiet with questionable thanks to Wise's naive direction or Ms Harris' whingey hysterics. The Haunting has considerable merits but - and it's pointless pretending otherwise - ultimately requires a long-winded trudge on the part of its audience to finally appreciate that. Greatest haunted house horror movie ever made? Check out The Changeling before rushing to judgment purely on the sheeplike inherited wisdom of others.
Rating: 
Summary: Repugnant acting ruins the spooky atmosphere
Review: Some of the most irritating and mean-spirited people are gathered in a bona fide haunted house for the benefit of a professor's obsession to find something truly supernatural, and the effect, although occasionally eerie (e.g., the breathing door, the doppler knocks, the cold spot), is in the end, one of major disappointment and sympathy for the house for having to be invaded by such spiteful boors. Julie Harris in particular, as the unstable Eleanor, can bring out the homicidal instinct in a viewer, a death wish for her prudish disposition and her whining self-absorption. Shirley Jackson could have been better served by more appropriate casting. Hill House out-acts any of them.
Rating:
Summary: great
Review: Great movie, this is a spine-tingling movie which would get anyone's heart beat going. I suggest this movie to anyone
Rating:
Summary: Awesome
Review: For a long time now, I have searched for a movie to scare me as much as "The Omen" did when I was 13, and I've finally found it. And the reason it get's top rating from me is not only because it were scary, it's superb directed as well. Astonishing effects for its time too. This movie is a "must" for every horror-film collector. don't even doubt getting it, you won't regret it. PS: Stay clear of the '99 remake, that movie is awfull and a disgrace to the '63 version. Not to mention the book.
Rating: 
Summary: I've eaten casseroles scarier than this
Review: Refreshing as it is to see a horror film rely more on the power of suggestion than on buckets of blood, "The Haunting," Robert Wise's 1963 adaptation of Shirley Jackson's novel, never really becomes as frightening as it clearly wants to be. Occasionally tense and mildly spooky but more often talky, overly melodramatic, and just downright silly, this is one of those films that would benefit a great deal if its characters would just shut up once in a while. Or at least stop thinking, so we wouldn't be forced to listen to their irritating voice-overs. Granted, there's only one character erring in that direction, but unfortunately, it's Eleanor Lance (Julie Harris), a whiny, disturbed, introverted old maid who's got some serious bats in the belfry--she's feeling (what else?) guilt over the recent "natural" death of the sick old mother she's nursed for the past eight years. Eleanor, of course, proves to be the most susceptible to the eerie but invisible apparitions of Hill House, an abandoned old estate where she and three other guests (well-played by Richard Johnson, Claire Bloom, and Russ Tamblyn) are embarking on a search for the supernatural. Harris does the best she can, but watching her wander about like Alice in Wonderland on crack, murmuring awful dialogue like "The house wants me, the house is alive," is more likely to evoke laughs than chills. There's also a protracted early scene in which Harris is driving toward her unfortunate destination, plagued by anxiety, fear, and that ever-present voice-over, that is a complete rip-off of the same scene Janet Leigh did in "Psycho" (and I apologize for even mentioning the name of that superior film in this review). The idea behind all this prolonged psychobabble, of course, is that "The Haunting" can be considered as either a genuine ghost story or simply a story of a woman's deteriorating psyche, and that the ambiguities of the human mind are ultimately far more frightening than the sight of actual spooks. It's an excellent idea, but there's also such a thing as being too vague; in fact, the scariest moment in the entire film occurs when it finally decides to actually SHOW us something scary, rather than anesthetize us with obtrusive close-ups and creaky music. (Humphrey Searle's score blares so incessantly it could turn you off to soundtracks altogether.) Certainly, an excess of gore isn't the recipe for a successful horror movie, but if there's one thing that "The Haunting" demonstrates, it's that an excess of anything else is hardly an improvement.
Rating:
Summary: A HORROR MASTERPIECE
Review: i just had to write a review of this movie.. it is so refreshing to see 154 reviews of this movie and 99% of those reviews gave this movie 5 stars.. in a world of blood and gut movies that is truly surprising.. enough cannot be said of this masterpiece of horror and suspense. i saw it as a young girl and it scared me to death. it was always very popular in my family and i bought it as soon as it came out on video.. still scares me to this day.. i cannot watch this movie if i am home alone... it is what you don't see that scares you to death.......
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