REVIEWS

"THE HAUNTING"

Jan de Bont was very well known in the film world as one of the best cinematographers in the business. Along with many others, he was the cinematographer for "Die Hard," "Black Rain," "Basic Instinct," "Flatliners," "The Hunt for Red October," and in 1992, he worked on his last movie as a cinematographer, "Lethal Weapon 3." Since then, he gave up his cinematographer duties in order to direct, and his directorial debut was the surprise smash hit, "Speed." His sophomore effort, "Twister," was an even BIGGER hit. Unfortunately, the third time wasn't the charm, because his next film was "Speed 2: Cruise Control," one of the biggest box office bombs of 1997. I saw "Speed" and I saw "Twister" (I avoided the "Speed" sequel), and despite the weak screenplays, Jan de Bont really does know how to direct an action movie. Then along comes "The Haunting," a movie where he can't rely on the intense action sequences. Nope, instead of an action movie, it's a mild horror movie, and as it turns out, he did a really good job... even if it WAS with yet another shitty script.

Visually, "The Haunting" is excellent. Jan de Bont threw some awesome shots in there and the house is beautiful. The exteriors were shots of an actual house (mansion, estate, whatever...), and it's very, very, very nice. I wanna live there! As for the interior of the house, it's absolutely incredible. The interior is not the actual house, though. It's sets designed by the amazing production designer, Eugenio Zanetti, the great production designer of "What Dreams May Come" and "Warriors of Virtue." The audio (except for the dialogue) was great. The constant hum, snaps, creaks, and other sounds were just perfect. Then there's the dialogue. The dialogue is very corny. Like, "Titanic" corny.

The special effects aren't all over the place like you may expect. It's not until the second half of the movie that you start seeing the impressive computer-generated special effects. The animation is good, but in the big climax, it's obvious animation, but perhaps that was unavoidable.

Liam Neeson ("Oskar Schindler," "Darkman," "Rob Roy," "Qui-Gon Jinn"... this guy often gets great roles, but this isn't one of them) is good, though this isn't his movie. This is Lili Taylor's movie. For those of you don't know, she's the REAL queen of independent film (actually, she and Parker Posey are constantly in a close race to get that title). She's averaged three films a year since her debut in 1987, but she seems to finally be getting some mainstream acceptance. This is good because she's a very talented actress. She'll be playing "Janis Joplin" in a biopic about the singer. It's being directed by Nancy Savoca, someone Lili Taylor has worked with several times before. Anyway, Catherine Zeta-Jones is in the movie, as well. With the success of "The Mask of Zorro" and "Entrapment," Catherine Zeta-Jones can do no wrong right now. This was a good role for her, though her character was very underdeveloped. She's a decent actress, as well as being quite the hottie. Owen Wilson is in the movie, too. He was good in "Bottle Rocket," and his role in "Armageddon" got him lotsa attention. He's okay, but he seems to always play the same character. And his nose looks like the head of a penis.

Jan de Bont directed this movie from a script written by David Self, and this is Self's debut feature film based on a script he wrote. I dunno, I don't think it's a good script. The dialogue is just terrible. It's based on a novel by Shirley Jackson called "The Haunting of Hill House" (the original title of the film until another studio started working on "The House on Haunted Hill," a completely different story, but the name change was probably a good idea anyway). There was a movie released in the 1960s called "The Haunting" that was also based on that book. It was directed by Robert Wise, and though I haven't seen it, I know that it relied more on general creepiness than abundant special effects. Maybe I'll see it one day so I can compare the two.

"The Haunting" isn't the least bit scary, nor is it very good, but it's certainly cool to look at. Jan de Bont is obviously a skilled director, but it would really be nice to see him work with a good script. As for Eugenio Zanetti, the movie's production designer, I really look forward to seeing more of his work in future films. But despite the great eye candy, the screenplay simply didn't work for me. Maybe you'll like it more than I did, maybe you won't. I didn't totally HATE "The Haunting," it was just... blah. Looked damn cool, though.

Scale of 1-10: 6