The Haunting, british horror film from 1963
It was all right for what it was, I guess. The story is based on a book by Shirley Jackson that I admit I've never read, but that now I might eventually. But you can tell it isn't your standard onventional horror movie from the 60s and that some effort actually went to the story, which is rather nice. With all that said, it is STILL a film and a story made in that era, so it has some of the tropes and cliches from it.
The movie itself shares more similarities with b-film from the 50s than anything else (say, The Brain that Wouldn't Die and The Creeping Skull, just to put an example), which aims to do horror with its atmosphere, ambience, and creepy story (for its day) rather than a huge bodycount or gore. However, unlike the examples mentioned above, The Haunting archives this and never veers too deep into cheesy territory. What frights it attempts it does so with weird camera angles, very clever (and cheap) tricks, weird shots, practical effects, reverse tracking, and great cinematography taht makes the house look much weirder and bigger than it really is. It's that type of directing where you can tell they wanted to do more than -possibly- the technology and budget could allow in those days, so they did everything else they could, and did it right.
Having said that, the movie isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination. Because it was a movie made in the early 60s, it does suffer from some eventually dip into actors hamming it up, and most of the plot having to be told rather than shown, and because the "narrator" is a so-called expert (character-wise) from a field that still doesn't get much respect this days, his narration can sometimes be a bit... fantastical and unrelibale.
Having said all that, I still don't regret watching it. As long as you don't take it too seriously and take it for what it is, I think you'll enjoy it too.
8/10 bendy doors.
