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List Price: $14.98Amazon.com's Price: $8.99 You Save: $5.99 (40%)Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audience Rating: G (General Audience)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9780790746609
Format: Anamorphic, Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
ISBN: 0790746603
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: August 05, 2003
Running Time: 112 minutes
Sales Rank: 4292
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: September 18, 1963
Editorial Review:
Description:
A group is introduced to the supernatural through a 90-year old New England haunted house. Be prepared for hair-raising results in this classic horror film!
Amazon.com essential video:
Certain to remain one of the greatest haunted-house movies ever made, Robert Wise's The Haunting (1963) is antithetical to all the gory horror films of subsequent decades, because its considerable frights remain implicitly rooted in the viewer's sensitivity to abject fear. A classic spook-fest based on Shirley Jackson's novel The Haunting of Hill House (which also inspired the 1999 remake directed by Jan de Bont), the film begins with a prologue that concisely establishes the dark history of Hill House, a massive New England mansion (actually filmed in England) that will play host to four daring guests determined to investigate--and hopefully debunk--the legacy of death and ghostly possession that has given the mansion its terrifying reputation.
Consumed by guilt and grief over her mother's recent death and driven to adventure by her belief in the supernatural, Eleanor Vance (Julie Harris) is the most unstable--and therefore the most vulnerable--visitor to Hill House. She's invited there by anthropologist Dr. Markway (Richard Johnson), along with the bohemian lesbian Theodora (Claire Bloom), who has acute extra-sensory abilities, and glib playboy Luke Sanderson (Russ Tamblyn, from Wise's West Side Story), who will gladly inherit Hill House if it proves to be hospitable. Of course, the shadowy mansion is anything but welcoming to its unwanted intruders. Strange noises, from muffled wails to deafening pounding, set the stage for even scarier occurrences, including a door that appears to breathe (with a slowly turning doorknob that's almost unbearably suspenseful), unexplained writing on walls, and a delicate spiral staircase that seems to have a life of its own.
The genius of The Haunting lies in the restraint of Wise and screenwriter Nelson Gidding, who elicit almost all of the film's mounting terror from the psychology of its characters--particularly Eleanor, whose grip on sanity grows increasingly tenuous. The presence of lurking spirits relies heavily on the power of suggestion (likewise the cautious handling of Theodora's attraction to Eleanor) and the film's use of sound is more terrifying than anything Wise could have shown with his camera. Like Jack Clayton's 1961 chiller, The Innocents, The Haunting knows the value of planting the seeds of terror in the mind, as opposed to letting them blossom graphically on the screen. What you don't see is infinitely more frightening than what you do, and with nary a severed head or bloody corpse in sight, The Haunting is guaranteed to chill you to the bone. --Jeff Shannon
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Just one thing......
The only thing I would add to the (In my opinion)'spot on' positive comments regarding this film, is that I wish that it had a Digital Surround audio track. Can you imagine how much it would add to the film to have those awesome audio effects coming at you from all directions in a dark room, on a dark stormy night?!
I guess I will add one other thing (can't help myself). The fact that it was filmed in black and white, to me, was an indication of just how great Robert Wise (the director) ... Read More
Rating: - A True Classic
A True Classic
When you look at 1963's THE HAUNTING directed by Robert Wise you can see the intellect, craftsmanship and most importantly the subtle emotionally thought provoking energy that went into the making of this film. Director Robert Wise was always the consummate professional consistently delivering a solid, engrossing and entertaining motion picture. Robert Wise was a director with no discernible directorial style yet he took whatever the budget would allow and he always ... Read More
Rating:  - Subtle atmospheric classic that might bore the young ADD Red Bull fast food CGI-loving crowd
Classic B&W supernatural flick from 1963. Four people investigate a Victorian-style mansion rumored to be haunted. They basically pose as live bait for the ghosts, which supposedly inhabit this large house with an evil past.
Now, this movie never shows anything overtly terrifying. But it creates great tension with the "less is more" approach. It lets your imagination quiver and burn with the dreadful possibilities. I like how it questions the reasons we harness an unneccessary burden ... Read More
Rating:  - Needs enhancement!
I had been looking for this title to be available on disk or VHS for some time. The Haunting has always been one of my favorite movies and I wanted to share it with friends and family.
I wish it had been given a better treatment, however. The sound quality is very poor and the picture appears to have been copied direct from an old print with no enhancement whatsoever. The movie is five star. This treatment quality wise is two!
Rating:  - Scary? Hardly. More Like Narcolepsy-Inducing
The SCARIEST thing about this 1963 film is that it has generated so many 5 star reviews.
It plods. It thumps. It repeats itself over and over and over.
I did manage to finish it, but what a waste of time.
I think people reviewed it based on their grade-school memories of it, because this film HAS NOT aged well.
Save your money.
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