The Haunting is a 1963 horror film directed and produced by Robert Wise, adapted by Nelson Gidding from Shirley Jackson's 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House. It stars Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, and Russ Tamblyn. The film depicts the experiences of a small group of people invited by a paranormal investigator to investigate a purportedly haunted house.
The film was released on 18 September 1963. In 2010, The Guardian newspaper ranked it as the 13th-best horror film of all time. Director Martin Scorsese has placed The Haunting first on his list of the 11 scariest horror films of all time. The Haunting was released on DVD in its original screen format with commentary in 2003, and was released on Blu-ray on 15 October 2013. The film was remade in 1999 by director Jan de Bont, starring Liam Neeson, Lili Taylor, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Owen Wilson, but that version received generally negative reviews from critics.
Dr. John Markway narrates the history of the 90-year-old Hill House, which was constructed in Massachusetts by Hugh Crain as a home for his wife. She died when her carriage crashed against a tree as she approached the house for the first time. Crain remarried, but his second wife died in the house from a fall down the stairs. Crain's daughter Abigail lived in the house for the rest of her life, never moving out of the nursery room. She died calling for her nurse-companion. The companion inherited the house, but later hanged herself from a spiral staircase in the library. Hill House was eventually inherited by Mrs. Sannerson, a distant relative of the companion, although the house had stood empty for some time.
Markway wishes to study the reported paranormal activity at Hill House and sends invitations for people to join his investigation; however, Mrs. Sannerson demands that Markway allow her heir Luke Sannerson to join. Only two other individuals accept—Theodora, a psychic, and Eleanor Lance, who experienced poltergeist activity as a child. Eleanor spent her adult life caring for her invalid mother, whose recent death has left Eleanor with severe guilt.
The group find the mansion's walls were constructed with angles askew, resulting in off-center perspectives and doors that open and close by themselves. The library contains the ramshackle spiral staircase, from which the previous owner hanged herself. During their first night in the house, Eleanor and Theo are terrified by banging sounds made against the door to Theo's bedroom, and hear menacing laughter. Luke and the doctor, however, later report the house had been silent for them. In the morning, the words "Help Eleanor Come Home" are found scrawled in a chalky substance on a wall, distressing Eleanor. The group explores the house, discovering a huge marble composite statue, supposedly of St. Francis curing lepers, which seems to echo the string of characters who have lived in the house (Hugh Crain, Abigail, and the companion), but also resemble Dr. Markway, Luke, Theo, and Eleanor.
The doctor, Luke and Theodora explore the library with the treacherous spiral staircase, but Eleanor has a severe reaction that prevents her from entering. Leaning over the veranda to look at the library's tower, she becomes dizzy and is caught by Markway, who speculates that he should send her home, but Eleanor protests, blaming the house rather than her nerves. That evening, Dr. Markway discovers a cold spot outside the nursery room. Despite all these occurrences, Eleanor feels a tentative affinity to Hill House.
That night, on Markway's insistence, Theo moves into Eleanor's room, and they fall asleep in the twin beds pushed together. Eleanor is awakened by the emphatic voice of a man speaking and a woman laughing. Fearful, Eleanor asks Theo to hold her hand and soon she feels a crushing grip. As Eleanor hears the sound of a young girl crying, she shouts at whoever is hurting the child. Theo awakens to find that Eleanor has moved from the bed to the couch, and Eleanor realizes it was not Theo's hand she held.
The following day Theo confronts Eleanor about her growing feelings for Dr. Markway, and Eleanor lashes back at Theo for being "unnatural," implying either Theo's psychic ability to know what Eleanor is thinking (such as Eleanor reacting to a sick-room smell in the library), or her attraction to Eleanor. Dr. Markway's skeptical wife Grace arrives at Hill House to warn him that a reporter has learned of his investigation there. Grace announces that she plans to join the group for the duration of the investigation, to the consternation of Eleanor, who had begun developing feelings for Markway while unaware that he was married, and demands a room in the nursery despite her husband's warning that it is likely the center of the disturbances. That night in the living room, the group experiences loud banging and an unseen intruder attempting to force its way into the room, causing the door to bulge inward. The banging moves towards etc.....
