THE HAUNTING has a few good scares and admittedly some great atmosphere too. Sadly, it’s the plot that lets you down. Horror films usually contain great ideas that are then made into very bad movies. With THE HAUNTING, the reverse is true. At its core, the haunted house works, it’s the story within it that doesn’t. And the basic twists never lead into anything exciting or worthwhile. They feel as though they might, but ultimately they don’t. Not to spoil much, but the film ends up focusing solely on Lili Taylor’s character and this was the mistake. Frankly, the character is boring. Not only that, the twist that involves her, which makes up the rest of the film, is no big whoop. And supporting characters, all of a sudden, have this remarkable clairvoyance and understanding into situations that makes no sense whatsoever.

      In some ways, CG effects have become Hollywood’s Achilles’ heel. It’s hardly foolproof yet, but so many movies go overboard in their use of it, like it’s a drug or something. The worst of it usually entails overblown effects milking up the screen for far too much time. It’s like watching an artist dump their paint all over a canvas, rather than carefully applying it. And like I said, it’s not an exact science. Take for example the scene where the actors’ have their breath added in digitally. This would be great, except for the fact that the breath only matches about half of their exhales. Now of course, most people would never notice this or even care, but it’s an example. My disdain lies more with these bombastic, scene filler effects.

      If you must go, go. Still, I’d recommend renting THE UNINVITED or THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE first. They are much better haunted house films.