Dir: Robert Wise | Cast: Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson | Thriller 1963
Like ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ Robert Wise’s ‘The Haunting’ received the backhanded compliment of an unnecessary remake and with Jack Clayton’s ‘The Innocents’ qualifies as the second of probably the two finest achievements of the horror genre of the sixties, and despite competition from the vivid colour of Hammer Films they provide definitive proof that the proper medium for ghost stories was black & white.
Plainly the work of a director who cut his teeth under Val Lewton, Wise employs modern refinements like infra-red photography. The acting is consistently good, with the transferral of the film’s viewpoint from the opening narration of Dr Markway to the use of interior monologues by Julie Harris particularly effective. The single scariest moment has to be when Rosalie Crutchley smiles; and the fact (SLIGHT SPOILER COMING:) that the final line is given to the previously flippant Russ Tamblyn underlines the gravitas of the conclusion. @RichardChatten