Movie Review – The Haunting (1963)

Today we’re taking a look at The Haunting, a 1963 horror film that takes viewers into a house believed to be terrorized by ghosts and other evil spirits.

Nearly everybody has heard of an allegedly haunted home in their town or neighborhood, an old, unkept or unoccupied place where it’s said that restless spirits gather at night.  That premise is used in The Haunting where a paranormal psychologist takes a small team with him to investigate Hill House, an old home that has seen its share of death and is a place where ghosts still call home.  But are the ghosts and paranormal entities real, or is it just part of their imagination?

The Haunting is a black-and-white paranormal horror film based on the book, The Haunting of Hill House.  The film was directed by Robert Wise and stars Julie Harris in the lead role of Eleanor Lance, a psychologically fragile woman who is known for having a paranormal event in her past.  Supporting her are Claire Bloom as Theodora, Richard Johnson as Dr. John Markway, and Russ Tamblyn as Luke Sanderson.

The Haunting begins as Dr. John Markway does a voiceover and tells us a brief history of Hill House.  We quickly learn that Hill House is a house that has been surrounded by death and mystery.  The house was built by Hugh Crain as a home for his wife and daughter, Abigail, in a remote part of New England.  As a carriage was bringing Hugh Crain’s young wife to the completed house, the horses were spooked and the carriage crashed against a tree, killing his wife before she could step foot into the house.

Instead of leaving, Hugh Crain and Abigail remained in Hill House.  Hugh remarried but his second wife fell down a flight of stairs in the house and died from her injuries.  Following his second wife’s death, Hugh Crain went to England where he would later die in a drowning accident, leaving Abigail with a caregiver in Hill House.

Abigail chose to continue living in the nursery throughout her years at Hill House, never changing rooms or even seeking a husband and family of her own.  Later in life she would become bed-ridden and dependent upon a young female companion from the village.  Her young companion would often sneak away and see her boyfriend while the elder Abigail slept.  One evening the companion was away when Abigail desperately needed help.  She died and the companion inherited Hill House.

The female companion would live in Hill House for several years, but it would take its toll on her as well.  The villagers believed that the companion somehow murdered Abigail.  Other people believed that the house itself was haunted and capable of driving people insane.  Whatever the case, the female companion lived an isolated life in Hill House until one day she climbed the spiral staircase in the library and hanged herself from the rafters with a length of rope.

After the death of the female companion, Hill House was legally passed to a distant relative in Boston, Massachusetts, an older lady named Mrs. Sanderson.  That’s when the tale of Hill House continues to today (1963).

Dr. John Markway (Richard Johnson) is a parapsychologist who is desperately seeking to study a “real” haunted house.  He knows about Hill House and the tales of death and insanity surrounding it.  He convinces Mrs. Sanderson (Fay Compton) to let him take a small team of researchers into Hill House and determine if it’s legitimately haunted or not.  Mrs. Sanderson is hesitant as she has tried to rent Hill House many times, and nobody can manage to stay there for more than a couple of nights.  She warns the professor that, “The dead are not quiet in Hill House.”

Mrs. Sanderson agrees to allow Dr. Markway to investigate Hill House as long as he takes along her nephew, Luke Sanderson.  Luke will one day inherit the house, and he should know if the reports of ghosts and terrors are true or not.

Up next we meet Eleanor Lance (Julie Harris), a young woman who lives at home with her father and sisters.  Eleanor had recently been caring for her ill and bedridden mother until her recent death.  Desperately seeking a way to temporarily escape her father and sisters, Eleanor accepts the offer to help Dr. Markway with his experiment and drives to Hill House.  She hopes that this is the big moment to finally make something useful of her life.

Eleanor is the first person to arrive at Hill House.  After convincing Mr. Dudley (Valentine Dyall), one of the house’s caretakers, to allow herself onto the property, she rounds a corner and then freezes when she sees the house.  Hill House as a mesmerizing affect on people.  Eleanor thinks that the house itself is staring at her, like it’s actually alive or full of dark energy.

At the front door Eleanor is greeted by Mrs. Dudley (Rosalie Crutchley), another caretaker of Hill House, and is shown her room for the duration of her stay.  Immediately we see that the interior of Hill House is almost as crazy as its exterior.  The low ceilings make rooms claustrophobic, the hallways seem to be a series of mazes, doors open and close on their own, and creepy statues decorate several of the rooms.  One has to wonder if Hugh Crain was insane when he was building Hill House those many years ago.

After showing Eleanor her room, Mrs. Dudley warns her that she and her husband live miles away in town.  She emphasizes that Eleanor and her companions will be on their own when she and her husband head home.  Neither she nor her husband will be in Hill House after dark.  They’re on their own should any danger arise.  Mrs. Dudley hints that they should expect to encounter evil spirits each night.

Just when Eleanor’s emotions start to get the best of her, she goes through a doorway and meets Theodora (Claire Bloom), one of her companions for the paranormal investigation.  The two ladies quickly become friends though it’s hinted that Theodora might be after something more than just friendship with Eleanor.

Later, Eleanor and Theodora are lost in Hill House as they’re trying to find their way to the main hall to meet their other companions.  Suddenly the ladies both feel a cold chill and Eleanor starts to believe that the house itself is alive.  Theodora uses her psychic powers and believes that the house is wanting and calling for Eleanor.

Just as Eleanor starts to panic a door opens and out steps Dr. John Markway.  He claims that he left the door open so that the ladies could find it, but somehow the door allegedly closed on its own.  Dr. Markway claims that the doors were built at strange angles and always closed on their own, but when he tries to prove it to the ladies, the door stays open.  Perhaps there’s something else at play in Hill House.

The professor leads the ladies to the dining room where they meet Luke Sanderson (Russ Tamblyn), the next person who will inherit Hill House.  Luke seems to have more of an interest in women and liquor than any spirits that may be roaming Hill House, to which he does not believe exist.

Dr. Markway comments that there were originally going to be six researchers on this assignment, but two of them decided to drop out after presumably researching the history of Hill House.  He seems rather pleased when Theodora and Eleanor deny doing any research into the house, believing that they are truly innocent and will have genuine reactions to the paranormal spirits.

That night the researchers retire to their separate bedrooms in Hill House.  Eleanor wakes from a dream about her mother when she hears a series of banging from somewhere in the mansion.  The banging grows louder and Theodora is also awakened from it.  The two ladies huddle together and wait for it to end.  Just as the sounds stop, suddenly they come back with a vengeance.  The loud sounds outside in the hallway terrify the two ladies.  They watch in horror as the unseen terror even tries to turn the doorknob on the locked door.

The sounds finally silence and the two ladies discover Luke and Dr. Markway walking down the hallway.  The men claim that they were chasing what they believed to have been a dog.  They heard disembodied footsteps run down the hallway.  They gave chase and followed the sounds outside, but whatever it was had disappeared.  Although Luke and Dr. Markway were just outside, neither of them heard the horrendous banging outside of Theodora’s bedroom.

The following morning Eleanor and Dr. Markway take a few moments to remember the unexplained events from the previous night.  The professor thought that it would have scared away Eleanor, but she’s determined to make the most of her visit to Hill House, spooky sounds and all.  She admits that for the past eleven years she had been caring for her invalid mother.  It’s been her sole occupation day and night.  Right now she has nothing waiting for her back home in Boston.

As they continue to talk, Eleanor grows closer to Dr. Markway and starts to create a bond with him.  What she doesn’t know is that the professor is married.

Theodora soon arrives and joins Eleanor and Dr. Markway for breakfast.  When Luke arrives in the room, he tells them that there’s writing outside in the hallway.  It reads “HELP ELEANOR COME HOME.”  This terrifies the woman as she’s scared that the evil spirit knows her name.  It’s as if she’s been targeted by an unseen force.  But why?

After the ordeal at breakfast, Dr. Markway takes the group on a tour of the house, showing them the conservatory and then the house’s library.  Inside the library Eleanor discovers that the books smell exactly like how her mother did before she died, and she’s unable to enter the room.  The others enter the room and Dr. Markway shows them the balcony at the top of the spiral stairs where the female companion hanged herself after the death of Abigail.

Luke makes light of the situation and decides to climb the spiral staircase.  While he’s showcasing on the stairs they suddenly wobble and he has to jump down to the floor to save himself.  Were the stairs weak from years of deterioration, or was a mysterious force at fault?

While her companions are in the library, Eleanor steps outside and onto the balcony for some fresh air.  She’s looking up towards the top of the house when she’s suddenly hit with a wave of dizziness and nearly falls over the railing.  Dr. Markway is able to grab and save Eleanor from falling.

That night, Dr. Markway discovers a cold spot in the hallway.  He has Luke, Theodora and Eleanor verify its existence.  The professor believes that the cold spot represents the heart of Hill House and the source of the evil presence. That cold spot just happens to be outside the doors to the nursery, the room that Abigail called home for almost her entire life.  He thinks that if they keep the doors to the nursery closed a little while longer, then the paranormal activity may increase, like keeping the lid on a pressure cooker.

Later that night, as Eleanor and Theodore are sharing a room (as requested by Dr. Markway), Eleanor awakens to hear a woman’s voice giggling.  It sounds like it’s coming from the wall.  The sounds change to that of a child crying out in pain.  As Eleanor is trying to shut out the noise, she feels Theodora squeezing her hand very tightly.  However, when the sounds stop and Eleanor pulls back the covers, she discovers that her roommate is still in her bed across the room.  Who was squeezing her hand?

The next morning, Eleanor meets with Dr. Markway in the music room and tells him about the night that her mother died.  She tells him that her mother was knocking on the wall for help, but she didn’t go help her.  After hearing her knocking and then delivering her the medicine hundreds of times before, this one time she didn’t answer, and now her mother is dead.  Eleanor has been feeling extremely guilty of her actions even though that giving her the medicine would only temporarily delay the inevitable result.  Dr. Markway tells Eleanor that it was okay, that after eleven years of dedicating her life to taking care of her invalid mother, it was time to end it.  She’s human.  She wasn’t expected to keep caring for her mother forever.

That evening, Grace Markway (Lois Maxwell) arrives to warn Dr. Markway that a reporter has learned of his paranormal research in the Hill House.  At that point Eleanor learns that the professor is really married, and all of her advances and bonding was for nothing.  Grace wants her husband to return home, but he refuses.  Dr. Markway is convinced that he’s at the edge of a breakthrough in his experiment.

At first her husband is going to place Grace in his bedroom, but she wants more.  Grace wants to stay in some place mysterious like a dungeon or a secret room as she doesn’t believe in the supernatural.  When Eleanor suggests the nursery, Grace jumps at the opportunity.  Eleanor thinks about her actions and changes her mind, pleading with Grace to also change her mind and sleep elsewhere.

When they reach the top of the stairs, Luke notices that the doors to the nursery have opened.  Those doors have allegedly been locked and secured with none of them having the key to unlock them.  Earlier they were closed, but now they’re wide open as if they’re inviting Grace inside of the room.

Grace Markway thinks nothing of Hill House or the nursery.  She bids them all good night and closes the doors on the people.

That night Eleanor, Theodora, Dr. Markway and Luke are all downstairs in the parlor when they hear strange noises in the hallway.  The banging stops for a moment and then it’s followed by a terrible crashing sound.  Dr. Markway wants to leave and make sure that Grace is safe in the nursery, but nobody lets him leave the room.  The noises stop again.  Everybody watches as the doorknob starts to rattle.  After that the door itself begins bowing into the room and bending as if the door itself is breathing.

While this is occurring, Eleanor is terrified that all of the paranormal activity is because of her.  Whatever spirits are in the house are really after her.  They know her name and they know which room she’s in inside of the house.  Could it all be related to the incident when she was a child when an unseen force threw stones at her house?  Is there a connection to the paranormal activity and Eleanor’s recently deceased mother?

Eleanor heads out a side door and runs down the hallways in the mansion.  Strange sounds follow her wherever she runs.  The house itself seems like it has come alive.  She runs up the stairs and sees that the doors to the nursery are open, but Grace is missing.  The others quickly find her up there and start searching for Grace.  There’s no sign of the professor’s wife anywhere.  It’s as if she simply vanished into thin air.

As the others are looking for Grace, Eleanor slips away again and runs through the mansion.  This time she ends up in the library.  This time the smell is gone and Eleanor is able to stay in the room without becoming sick.  Now the woman is convinced that she has broken the spell of Hill House and she has returned to her true home.  This feeling compels her to climb the spiral staircase and see the balcony where the female companion hanged herself from years ago.

By this point Dr. Markway, Theodora and Luke have made their way to the library and found Eleanor.  They see her climbing the stairs as they begin to wobble and sway.  Knowing the danger, Dr. Markway climbs up after her to save Eleanor.  He reaches the balcony and manages to grab Eleanor before she falls over the edge.  All seems well until Eleanor sees a trap door open and out pops Grace all covered in dirt.  This frightens both women.  Eleanor screams and faints, and Grace quickly goes back into hiding.

A little while later Eleanor tells her story about seeing Grace, but Dr. Markway doesn’t believe her.  He’s still convinced that his wife is missing.  He also doesn’t want any further danger to happen to Eleanor, so he’s sending her back home.  Eleanor pleads with Luke to let her stay and live in Hill House, but he disagrees.  Eleanor is now convinced that if she leaves Hill House then the spirits will prey on Grace and see that she takes Eleanor’s place.

Eleanor is sitting in her car when she realizes that Hill House is capable of tricking them.  Nobody can force Eleanor to leave.  She takes off driving away from the house when the steering wheel suddenly jerks back and forth.  This convinces the woman that Hill House does not want her to leave.  Eleanor relaxes and accepts her fate when she suddenly sees Grace run across the street.  This is the last thing that she sees before her car crashes into a large tree and Eleanor is killed in the impact.  It’s the same tree that killed Hugh Crain’s wife about ninety years ago.

Dr. Markway, Theodora and Luke are at the scene of the car crash when Grace walks up to them.  She explains that she woke and hear noises and wanted to find her husband, but she got lost, almost like the house was making her lost on purpose.  Somehow she ended up in the attic.  She also doesn’t know how she ended up outside, but there she is alive and well.

The Haunting ends with Dr. John Markway stating that Hill House is, in fact, haunted.  Theodora concludes that the spirit of Eleanor is now a permanent part of the house as well, just as she wanted.

So is The Haunting any good?

Absolutely!

This is a fascinating classic horror story that makes you think about what’s really happening in the film.  Is this really a haunted house?  Does the house drive Eleanor insane?

For me, one of the most interesting parts of The Haunting is the introduction as we learn the history of Hill House and the sinister fates of its previous occupants, starting with its builder.  The scene where the female companion calmly climbs the stairs in the library and then kills herself by hanging is just creepy as hell.

As a whole, the rest of the film’s story involving the paranormal is pretty good.  Each night more events occur and we’re also told more about the house and the background of the characters.  Highlights here include Theodora’s psychic connection with the spirits, Dr. Markway’s obsession with studying the paranormal, and Eleanor’s slow descent into the abyss of insanity.  The film climaxes when Eleanor, or the evil spirits, cause the fatal car crash with the large tree.

The Haunting is one of those paranormal films where we never see any ghosts, demons or other spirits on cameras.  We hear sounds as the spirits try to scare the visitors, and we also see the characters react to a cold spot, a classic signal that ghosts are nearby.

But that’s it.

The rest of the horror is the mental stability of the characters and how they cope with the perceived danger.  We’re meant to believe that Hill House is actually haunted, but the spirits never seem pose a physical threat.  In this story the characters are more to a danger to themselves than they are from the unseen spirits.

Although The Haunting was remade in a 1999 film, the true legacy of this film lies not in its so-so remake but in the Disney theme parks instead.  Some of the effects in this film inspired the Imagineers (the Disney engineers) when they were designing “The Haunted Mansion.”  The scene on the ride in the Corridor of Doors has a direct reference from The Haunting with the ghosts knocking on doors and trying to turn the door knobs.  One of the doors even looks like the “bending” door from the film.

The ride’s preshow has a scene in the Portrait Gallery (also known as the “stretch room”), and we see the fate of Master Gracey.  At the top of the room is his corpse, still hanging from the rafters from the day he took his own life and hanged himself.  It seems like this is also a nod to The Haunting and the scene where the female companion hangs herself from the balcony in the library.

The Haunting (1963) – movie trailer

Fans of horror and paranormal films will feel right at home in 1963’s The Haunting.  Gather your friends, turn off the lights, and sit back and enjoy this classic horror film.  Do not pass up a chance to watch The Haunting!

Dr. John Markway – “It was an evil house from the beginning – a house that was born bad.”

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Mrs. Sanderson – “The dead are not quiet in Hill House.”

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Theodora – “Haven’t you noticed how nothing in this house seems to move until you look away and then you just… catch something out of the corner of your eye?”

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Eleanor Lance – “Can’t you feel it? It’s alive… watching.”

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Dr. John Markway – “Look, I know the supernatural is something that isn’t supposed to happen, but it does happen.”