There was a truly great “horror” movie made back around 1963 called The Haunting. I was derived from the Shirley Jackson short story of the same name. Claire Bloom and various brand name actors, plus a director who was truly inspired made it a great romp in thriller / suspence.
I put “horror” in quotes above because by modern standards (though it’s starting to turn around some finally) there’s no blood, no gore, no sudden, pointless shock moments… it relies entirely on story, set and mood to carry you into a scary experience. In other words, it was actually scary, rather than shocking, disgusting or a lesson in how to butcher meat.
The poster for the 1963, original version. That’s Claire Bloom doing the almost swoon there.
(I working toward the Irony, bare with me.)
In 1981 Stephen King published a non-fiction book called Danse Macabre. It was intended to be a history of Horror and those elements of SciFi that overlap (most of it, actually). It’s a truly magnificent piece of work, and I wish he would update it, to bring it up to what Hollywood (et al) has done since then.
In that book he pointed to the original The Haunting as the classic example of “don’t show the monster behind the door.” He said what made The Haunting so very scary was that you never in fact see the “Monster” you only see a door being banged on, a door knob trying to be turned unsuccessfully and a door that stretches and groans and deforms its shape, only to snatch back into place when the unknown thing moves on.
They never show you Monster Behind the Door.
This was the classic example of how to keep What’s Scary truly Scary.
And the poster for the 1999 version. From the posters alone, you can’t tell that they messed up the story in the remake. The poster’s actually pretty good, as far as it goes.
Here’s the irony: this movie was remade (1999, Liam Neesan and other brand name actors) almost 30 years after the original. Almost exactly the same script… almost, not quite. They ended up showing you the monster behind the door. And of course it wasn’t nearly as scary or engaging or … it wasn’t any of the things that the Original was.
So, Hollywood takes the classic movie known as the classic example of what makes a movie scary and violates the very rule that movie was such a great example of.
Irony, that is. In the dictionary under Irony, there’s probably a picture of these movie posters… đŸ™‚
This is also a rule that Star Trek violates time after time (after time). For example, they should never have attempted to explain how the Transporter works. In point of fact, a matter-stream transporter can not work, not the way it’s used there. There are other models of matter transporter that might, but not that one. The best they could ever have done with was to never attempt to explain it. Just accept it. (Don’t show the mistakes behind the door.)
So, whether explaining something best left unexplained or showing a monster best left unshown, the original of the Haunting has much to offer, especially in contrast with its disappointing remake, to every script writer of the extraordinary and what-if that so many of us enjoy, mostly in spite of the mistakes.
The mistakes that leave me wondering why, when Hollywood spends millions making a movie anyway, they couldn’t have paid a few more consultants’ fees.
Just some thoughts to ponder.
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