Shirley Jackson's Haunting

[dotinthesky]

I was still a kid when I first read The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson. It was a version translated into Brasilian Portuguese, bought in a tiny shopping mall near the apartment I grew up in São Paulo (I asked the saleswoman for a ghost story because I wanted to give Agatha Christie a break.) I loved the novel even though I wasn't old enough to fully understand it.

A few years ago, while visiting Kevin's parents in Canada, we rented The Haunting (the 1963 version) from the nearest strip mall videostore. Kevin's mom told us later that it gave her nightmares (very understandable when you consider she lives in a remote farm). I was impressed at how faithful the film was to the novel and how it built the suspense purely on suggestion and on a few key scenes involving "the haunting". Many of the novel's themes -- unstable minds meeting an unstable house; "unnatural" sexuality in an "unnatural" house -- also survive in the film, making it a kind of perfect companion piece for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. But, whereas Hitchcock's movie deals with dangerous human insanity in a remote location, The Haunting is about the power a place can have in destabilizing a person whose mind is weak. Hitchcock's psycho gets found out in the end while Hill House continues to stand after the characters are gone, with the implication that many more will meet a horrible fate there.

I bought the film on DVD over Christmas, when I saw it on sale, and last night we got the sour cream Pringles and chocolate biscuits ready before popping in the film. Although naive in some ways, and awkward in others (especially the interior monologues), the film still stands as one of the best ghost stories ever made. It's just so... classy. It's from a time when film-makers assumed their audience were intelligent and could come to their own conclusions, as well as tolerate plenty of dialogue between the characters. No blood and guts here.

I wish there were more ghost stories put to film, more creepy novels on the bestselling lists. Enough with all these chicklit novels and boring film franchises. Let's tell ghost stories to each other.

Comments

[littlelamb.livejournal.com]

aww i LOVE agatha christie and shirley jackson! i was just reading the haunting and the moving finger. they're just class.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

They are, they are. Perfect Summer reading. Have you read anything else by Shirley Jackson?

[littlelamb.livejournal.com]

have i read anything else by shirley jackson? why, she's in my interest list! she's one of the very few female AND modern writers who has ever infiltrated my literary canon. one of the things i love most about her is the re-occurring character which lends an air of surrealism to her literary world. (james harris). i think i own and have read nearly everything she has ever written.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I've read some of her short stories, The Haunting (of course) and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. I've loved all of it.

Sadly, she's just not found in the chain bookstores over here.

[littlelamb.livejournal.com]

that's bizarre. i guess i take for granted that she's an american author and extremely well respected here. 'the lottery' is quintessentially american.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I'd really like to read her less well known stuff. May try ordering it from Amazon.

[littlelamb.livejournal.com]

the lottery is probably her second most well known text next to the haunting.

i'd recommend this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Lottery-Other-Stories-Shirley-Jackson/dp/0374529531/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-6636139-9283323?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182101623&sr=1-1

this looks different than my copy, which is quite old. but i think it's the same collection of stories. i love her short stories. they're kind of like ... ethereal 1940s-1960s america.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Have added it to my Amazon wish list. ;-)

[littlelamb.livejournal.com]

you know who else are good... speaking of american gothic women writers:

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Stories-Flannery-OConnor/dp/0571143806/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-6636139-9283323?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182103144&sr=8-1

and eudora welty.

[littlelamb.livejournal.com]

her lesser known stuff would be in this:

http://www.amazon.com/Just-Ordinary-Day-Uncollected-Stories/dp/0553378333/ref=pd_sim_b_3/102-6636139-9283323?ie=UTF8&qid=1182101623&sr=1-1

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

The Haunting is one of my favourite films, not just favorite horror films, of all time. The cinematography and production design are truly beautiful. The house is a hotel now, by the way.

An interesting companion piece to it is "The Legend of Hell House" (1973), starring Roddy McDowell. It was written by Richard Matheson as a homage to The Haunting, but he wanted to provide undeniably real ghosts.

[msanthropist.livejournal.com]

I saw "The Legend of Hell House" back in '73 as a double feature with another freaky movie called "Asylum"...ever see that one? It was pretty awesome...

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

Oh yes indeed. Hurrah for Amicus films.

Good times...good times...

[msanthropist.livejournal.com]

Would you think less of me if I confessed that I saw the double feature while under the influence of LSD? I hallucinated the sound of the crackling brown paper wrapped around a dismembered hand crawling up the aisle of the movie theatre....

Re: Good times...good times...

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

Now that's a flashback NOBODY wants.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

The house is a hotel now

Yes, I noticed that when I did a search through Google yesterday. Near Stratford-upon-Avon (perhaps a nice destination for a day trip?)

An interesting companion piece to it is "The Legend of Hell House" (1973)

In the 80s, one of the TV channels in Brasil used to show horror movies late at night, during certain days of the week. When I got into horror, when I was around 10 or 11, I would sometimes stay up late to watch them (in the very off chance my parents were asleep.) I remember seeing ads for that movie but I never got to see it.

Do you remember a horror movie from the 70s about a boat that is discovered, with all of its passengers killed apart from a girl? She then tells of the horrors that befell the ship? I remember seeing this film but haven't managed to figure out what it's called.

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

Is that the one where the haunted ship had been used for Nazi torture experiments?

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I don't know... there's a scene where one of the ship's masts pierces one of the sailors. I think the devil was involved.

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've seen it.

"The House Upon the Hill Above Encanto"

[msanthropist.livejournal.com]

My older brother lived in a dilapidated little, old two-story house with crooked angles and strange acoustics with a rock band back in the 70's. The band wrote and recorded a song by the above named title that was included in one of the local radio station's promo albums made during that era called "The KGB Homegrown Albums." Local garage bands could submit original song recordings to be included in the fund-raising albums. I think there were a total of 6 or 7 released over a period of the same number of years. Anyway, the house was furnished with all the original contents left over from the older couple who had originally lived in the house but mysteriously and suddenly disappeared without a trace. They had left behind their car, all of their clothing and belongings, never to be heard from again. The house had a reputation for stranges sounds and such, my brother of course told me it was haunted. I stayed overnight visiting my brother and his roommates one weekend while I was about 16 and two very strange and remarkable things happened that weekend that I was witness to.

First I was reading a book (I forget the title) that someone had left on the coffee table in the living room. Everyone decided to go downstairs to the band room to practice and listen so I got up to join them, leaving the book on the table where I'd found it. I was the last one out, and you had to go out the front door and down an outer set of stairs to reach the bottom floor where the band practiced. It was actually the only room on that floor and had only one entrance. Once inside, I was seated out of the way with my brother while the band jammed, and growing a little bored I began to glance around at the magazines and debris strewn about the table near where I was sitting. There amongst the debris was the book I'd been reading upstairs. Thinking it was just another copy, I picked it up and began reading where I'd left off. When my brother decided to go back upstairs I went with him, leaving the book behind. When we got back to the living room, the book was nowhere to be found. I asked him about it, eventually accusing him of trying to trick me or freak me out somehow. He thought I brought it with me and just forgot about it but I know I left it upstairs.

Later after everyone else had left to go to a party or something, my brother and I were the only ones home. It was dark and we were sitting in the living room, quite buzzed from smoking dope, and listening to albums playing loudly on the stereo. I was zoning out, lost in thought or vegging or whatever when I heard my brother say something so I looked across the room at him and said loudly over the music, "What?!" His eyes were opened very wide and he had a finger held over his lips as though to shush me, and whispered, "Listen!" I leaned in and listened to what sounded like a muffled conversation between a man and woman taking place in the dining room, which was about six feet away from us and hidden behind a tied-dyed sheet that was hanging as a divider between the two rooms. I mouthed to my brother, "Who is it?" and he replied, his eyes still very wide, "I have no idea..." With a hand still to his lips, he quietly got up from his seat and walked over to the sheet, suddenly sweeping it aside to reveal - - - an empty room.

I will readily admit I was stoned. I was young. I was susceptible to suggestions about the house being haunted. But I sat there listening to an exchange taking place in the next room between a male voice and a female voice, though I couldn't make out their words, as sure as I am sitting here now. I have never felt the way that made me feel again since. Later when I had to pee, I made my brother hold my hand around the partially closed door because I was too afraid to be alone...I couldn't wait for daylight to come and to get the heck out of there...my brother didn't live there for very much longer but I never returned for another visit as long as he did.

Re: "The House Upon the Hill Above Encanto"

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Do you know if that house is still around? It would be cool to find out from its current inhabitants if they have experienced anything.

Once, when I was stoned in my residence hall bedroom, hanging out with a few friends, I thought I saw someone outside my window hit someone else on the head then drag their body into the laundry room. That was some strong shit we smoked. :-P

[desayuno-ingles.livejournal.com]

I also call for a moratorium on Southern lit.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Who exactly are you thinking of?

[desayuno-ingles.livejournal.com]

Not one particular author, although the woman who wrote that Bee book is on the list. Also the one about the Firefly Cloak.

[sallypointzero.livejournal.com]

'The Haunting' is amongst my top 5 all-time favourite films. No 1 is another highly charged b/wh classic ghost film 'The Innocents' with Deborah Kerr based on a favourite book, 'The Turn of The Screw' by Henry James.
Incidentally, and by a truly odd coincidence, 'The Legend of Hell House' (st Roddy McDowell this time) is on BBC2 TONIGHT at 1.50am.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Ay-Ya! So late... I wish I had an old style VCR to record it. :-(

Maybe I should just stay up and drink lots of coffee tomorrow?

[blu-bear.livejournal.com]

Was this the film that was remade in around 2000?

I saw it in the cinema then when I was 12 and it scared the crap out of me. Not so sure that it would now, but my twelve year old self thought it was quite good! I should check out the original I think.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Oh god, I think you would strongly disagree with your 12-year-old self if you saw that movie again. It's t.e.r.r.i.b.l.e. The original is in another stratosphere in terms of quality (and fidelity to the book.)

That's kind of freaky you were twelve in 1999! Oh god, am I old enough to be your father?! :-O

[dilvsy.livejournal.com]

that is one of my fave movies...it scared me when i saw it as a child. I still remember how the heart of the house was the nursery...the part thats cared me most was when she goes up the spiral staircase in the greenhouse.

(I read the book too, but many years ago)

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Have you seen the other film versions?

[dilvsy.livejournal.com]

yeah, I saw the shittastic remake with Lily Allen and Owen Wilson...it sucked so bad!!!!!

There was another remake besides that???

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Not only did that movie suck but my ears nearly bled from the sound being so loud (stoopid Paramount cinema in Montreal.)

There was a remake in the 70s, which is loosely based on the novel, "The Legend of Hell House".

[dilvsy.livejournal.com]

oh, the one with vincent Price, that got remade?

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm, not sure!

The Haunting

[mirple.livejournal.com]

I have come across very few people who have seen this film. my dad recommended it to me and in my turn i recommend it as one of the most spine-chilling films I've ever seen. as you say, the film doesn't rely on special effects, blood or gore to scare the audience, but succeeds in doing so anyway with a bit of suspense, suggestion and your own active imagination!

Re: The Haunting

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I'd imagine that most people dismiss it because it's in black and white, or "old".

Re: The Haunting

[mirple.livejournal.com]

probably *tut*

[stormecho.livejournal.com]

I'm currently reading King's 'salem's Lot'. There have been a few references so far to Jackson's Haunting. I will have to look into this.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

"The Haunting of Hill House" was one of the biggest influences on King's writing. He even wrote a long essay on the novel, dissecting its power to scare.