Jan de Bont’s 1999 paranormal horror movie The Haunting was poorly received by fans and critics upon its release. While it had the potential to live up to its source material, it largely failed in ways that would’ve ensured its success. Here’s why The Haunting bombed with fans and critics.
Adapted from Shirley Jackson’s 1959 gothic horror novel The Haunting Of Hill House, it follows Eleanor “Nell” Vance (Lili Taylor), who joins a group of paranormal researchers to uncover the secrets of Hill House. Liam Neeson (Dr. David Marrow), Owen Wilson (Luke Sanderson), and Catherine Zeta-Jones (Theodora “Theo”) star alongside Taylor. The Haunting was the second of three official adaptations of Jackson’s influential novel with the first being the 1963 movie The Haunting. Mike Flanagan’s Netflix original series The Haunting Of Hill House is the most recent take on the story as of this writing. This series garnered such positive reviews that it was followed by season 2, titled The Haunting Of Bly Manor, which was inspired by the works of author Henry James.
While paranormal horror movies are a timeless source of entertainment in the genre, The Haunting was one of the biggest releases in the sub-genre with the poorest reviews. As of this writing, it holds a 16% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, making it certifiably rotten by the website’s standards. It may have received better reviews had it not released during the same year as The Sixth Sense, The Blair Witch Project, and Sleepy Hollow. Regardless, The Haunting bombed among fans and critics for several irredeemable reasons.
The Haunting features a lot of talent, but the onscreen chemistry was sorely lacking. Jackson’s The Haunting Of Hill House has been praised for its ability to capture emotional ties between its characters. The 1999 movie failed to live up to these expectations as it attempted to modernize the novel with a heavy emphasis on action over emotion. This led to an overreliance on CGI to create the apparitions and an abundance of horror cliches. While paranormal horror movies were in the midst of reinvention with found footage movies like The Blair Witch Project, The Haunting remained in the past as a result. It failed to move forward with the rest of the sub-genre, which attributed to its negative reviews.
The Haunting bombed so badly that the horror comedy franchise Scary Movie used it as the foundational story for its sequel. The Scary Movie franchise is known for parodying stale and overused tropes in the genre. When a horror movie is used as a basis for Scary Movie’s storyline, it can indicate just how poorly it was received or how predictable a movie was. Sadly, The Haunting falls under this category. The spirits of the Crain family were used as Cindy Campbell’s (Anna Faris) humorous horrors as she and a group of college students go on a paranormal investigation of a haunted manor.
Ultimately, The Haunting bombed because of its characters’ poor onscreen chemistry, lack of inventive qualities, over-reliance on horror tropes, and an overuse of CGI. Based on critiques, there are seemingly no redeemable qualities to this movie besides the fact that it helped contribute to immensely popular Scary Movie franchise. Had the director and screenwriter been more attentive to Shirley Jackson’s original source material, The Haunting could have succeeded, but it failed.
