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It's never good when the audience for a horror movie is laughing uncontrollably. Laughter was what I was hearing though, as I watched this supremely silly and incredibly boring remake of "The Haunting". Critics and audiences alike gave director Jan De Bont punishing reviews after the failure of "Speed 2" and it looks like he's improved little, if any. If anything, this combined with that picture makes his success with "Speed" look like pure luck. The story tells the tale of a psychologist looking for test subjects for his latest experiment, a test to see the reactions of his subjects to fear. Only instead of being forward with them, he runs a cover over the study, calling it a study about "insomnia"(fitting, seeing that the film itself is like one big sleep-aid). He finds three willing participants in Eleanor(Lili Taylor), a scared and lonely girl who's spent the last decade caring for her ill mother; Theo, a "city gal" played by Catherine Zeta-Jones and in the movie's best performance, Owen Wilson(of "Bottle Rocket") plays Luke, a cynical joker. Suprisingly, the picture's worst performance is from Liam Neeson as the doctor, who has a pained expression on his face, as if he's not even believing the things his character is saying. Of course, before you know it, the walls of the Hill House are begining to thump and throb with eerie menace, at first out of the notice of our crew, but as the noises grow louder, the group can't help but take notice. Production designer Eugenio Zanetti, who also built the heaven and hell of "What Dreams May Come", also built the halls of the house and his work here is incredibly impressive and full of beautiful, haunting details. If anything, the details of the house itself served as the only entertainment for most of the film. Cool sets don't make a movie though, and unfortunately, the rest of the movie is as empty as the house's halls. "The Haunting" starts slowly, introducing us to each of the characters and throwing out details that are rather major and are quickly forgotten as they serve no purpose for the story. Details like the fact that Theo is bisexual. Rather interesting, but so what? Instead of building in intensity, "The Haunting" simply sits there as we wait, and wait, and wait for something to happen. The film just sits there and every so often, we get a random shot of the outside of the house, as if that's supposed to scare us. It looked the same 10 times before. The film can't even use sound well as it uses many rather unsubtle heavy low-bass effects,(instead of scaring me, it gave me a major headache) some of which nearly shook the roof off the theater. The middle of the film wanders aimlessly as the group finds out the story behind the ghosts that inhabit the house and the group's attempts at looking scared are actually, the most unintentionally amusing bits of the film. Eleanor suddenly turns out to be the "one" that the house is looking for? Why? I'm still not terribly sure as the explanation was rather sloppy. That, or maybe I was so bored by this point I couldn't care less. One of the two, or probably both. The script doesn't provide any interesting lines(Wilson's funny and witty lines seem obviously improved) and the ending seems sloppy. More than that, there are many little errors, such as one involving how the group is locked in and yet they're able to get out on the first night to send an assistant to the hospital. More than that, the movie just seems like a tease. And I hate that. The movie builds up and builds up and we know that the last bit of film's going to contain something...big. Sorry. The last thirty minutes contains an onslaught of pointless effects and storytelling nonsense. The final moments of the film are an incredibly weak payoff for having to sit through a couple of hours of dull story and uninteresting one liners. It's amazing how much De Bont sits in horror conventions rather than doing something fresh (or even energetic) with this story. What is lacks most is simply intensity. That key ingredient may have been added by a different filmmaker on this project, but it's simply too late now. I would have liked to have seen what a Tim Burton or a David Fincher or even a Bryan Singer could have done with this film instead of De Bont's painfully slow attempt. Face it, this is an effects film, bent on giving us a high-tech scare. It's technology that has in essence ruined a film like this, which should have focused on subtle scares rather than effects that call too much attention to themselves. It's a cold, impersonal film which, rather than scaring us, makes us laugh. I know the kind of laughs that echoed through the theater I sat in. It's the laugh of an audience who is far smarter than the film they're watching. De Bont should stick to what he knows best. After failing with not only "Speed 2" but this film, I'm trying to figure out just what he knows, if anything. A complete, total waste of two hours. * BACK TO THE SITE: Listing Of DVD Special Sales Back To A Guide To Current Film A List Of Current/Upcoming DVD For Sale Soundtracks For Current Films |