74
Metascore
10 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- From a potentially creaky, cliche-filled premise (a gaggle of stereotypes are invited to a spooky old house where all is not as it seems), director Robert Wise leads us on a brilliantly unsettling journey.
- 80The A.V. ClubKeith PhippsThe A.V. ClubKeith PhippsSound effects, disorienting camera work, expert editing, and Humphrey Searle's discomfiting score all suggest, without showing, a horrible presence waiting in the wings. Though parts of The Haunting are talky, even that works in the film's favor, as Tamblyn's glib dismissals and Johnson's calm professorial tone are unable to clear up the mystery at its core. After all, the specters that can't be seen, classified, or otherwise contained are the scariest of all.
- 80Time Out LondonTime Out LondonWhat makes the film so effective is not so much the slightly sinister characterisation of the generally neurotic group, but the fact that Wise makes the house itself the central character, a beautifully designed and highly atmospheric entity which, despite the often annoyingly angled camerawork, becomes genuinely frightening.
- 80The New YorkerPauline KaelThe New YorkerPauline KaelAn elegantly sinister scare movie, literate and expensive, with those two fine actresses Claire Bloom and Julie Harris.
- 75TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineAn undeniably effective adaptation of the Shirley Jackson novel and one of the best haunted-house movies.
- 70Chicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumChicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumRobert Wise's 1963 black-and-white 'Scope translation of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House was pretty effective when it came out, aided by Wise's skill as an editor.
- 60The New York TimesBosley CrowtherThe New York TimesBosley CrowtherSo it looks as though this film simply makes more goose pimples than sense, which is rather surprising and disappointing for a picture with two such actresses, who are very good all the way through it, and produced and directed by the able Robert Wise.
- 40In this movie version, directed by Robert Wise, the specter is slightly censored—what's left is just the usual commercial spirit. Whenever it appears, the violins on the sound track start to didder, doors open and shut by themselves, people stare about in terror and squeak: The house, it's alive! The picture, it's dead.