Horror as a literary genre has well-documented roots in folklore going back to the origins of human civilization. Ghosts have long been a part of that: in the first century AD, Pliny the Younger relayed a tale of a philosopher's encounter with a ghost that occupied a haunted villa. And before that, the Greeks and Egyptians were writing about spirits. Ghost stories saw a renaissance in the 19th and early 20th centuries, especially under M. R. James, who more or less invented the modern ghost story. But the award for the 20th century's most important ghost story probably belongs to Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House; it very well might be the most famous haunted house story ever written. And, in turn, The Haunting, Robert Wise's 1963 adaptation of Jackson's novel, holds a very high place in the cinematic horror canon, slotting in neatly alongside mid-century ghost classics like The Uninvited (1944), The Innocents (1961), Kuroneko (1968) and of course The House on Haunted Hill (1959).
Wise's film, like a lot of the best horror films of the late 1950s and early 1960s, is at least partially a film noir. The story revolves around Nell, a young woman who spent most of her adult life taking care of her cruel, chronically ill mother. Wracked with guilt following her mother's death and struggling to connect with her cold, unsympathetic sister, upon whose couch she's been sleeping, she readily volunteers for a parnormal study being conducted by a Dr. John Markway, who intends to perform a spot of ghost hunting at the decrepit Hill House, a supposedly haunted manor in rural New England with a bad history. The mansion itself is claimed to not just be haunted by the ghosts of its inhabitants, but perhaps evil in itself, alive in a way we don't fully understand, with its first "victim" dying before she ever even set foot in the place. In any case, the other volunteers in the study are Theodora (who goes by "Theo,") a supposed psychic, and Luke, who stands to inherit the property. Nell comes off awkward, like a fish out of water; as strange, seemingly supernatural happenings occur around the mansion, Nell becomes increasingly adamant about staying, in spite of the seeming threat to her safety, because she needs this, she needs to see it all as a vacation, and she fully intends to not go home when it's all over. It's never fully clear whether what's happening in the house is truly supernatural or if it's all in Nell's head.
Wise was a master filmmaker with incredible range: his film credits include The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Andromeda Strain, The Sound of Music, West Side Story, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, among a number of westerns, war movies and noirs. The Haunting is likewise a showcase for his cinematographic talents, all disorienting angles and moments of terror. Every room feels suffocatingly small; even the conservatory feels smaller than the amount of space it actually takes up, with the massive statue in the middle certainly not helping the feeling. Wise intentionally plays up the psychological aspects of the story; while Jackson insisted that the events were, in fact, supernatural, here Wise builds the story around Nell's mental instability after a lengthy period of caregiving. A sequence where she drives cross-country to reach the manor is reminiscent of a similar sequence in Psycho, where we're privy to the anxious thoughts and fantasies of the film's main female lead as she runs off to California after impulsively stealing thousands from her employer. Wise slowly builds the tension from the moment Nell steps into the house, culminating in the final scenes where Markway's wife disappears, Nell begins her suicidal ascent of the rickety spiral staircase, and the hurried escape from the manor.
While The Haunting is a classic film in the gothic mode, it also combines other elements to make it significantly more modern. Markway's expedition calls to mind latter-day ghost hunts, not least because his choice of volunteers have some connection to the supernatural. Theo herself is rather shockingly openly queer, never quite putting it into words (as per social mores of the day) but it's clear what the intent is when Nell, who has been emotionally flip-flopping the entire movie regarding Theo, rejects her as one of "nature's mistakes," yet has been giving mixed signals the entire movie. How much Nell means it seems to be ambiguous, given that it's a clear cheap shot in response to extended teasing from Theo, an example of Nell's mean streak coming through as she begins to unravel. Importantly, nothing ultimately happens to Theo, who remains a sympathetic character throughout the film, thereby averting a common trope where the queer character usually meets some ignominious fate. This, then, has since led The Haunting to be a commonly-cited example of queer media, one of the earliest modern films to feature a queer character in as positive a light as possible at the time.
I like The Haunting. I think it works better as a psychological narrative rather than a supernatural one, but there's really nothing saying it can't be both (see for example the way whatever force is animating the titular ship in Event Horizon manipulates Sam Neill's character, still struggling with grief over his wife's unexplained suicide.) It's a good mix of the gothic with the film noir with more modern sensibilities, a carefully constructed spook show that never completely draws back the curtain, but makes one lonely unbalanced woman its scariest act.
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