Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5247 in DVD
• Released on: 2000-11-27
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.77:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 138 minutes

Special Features
English
Region 2

Synopsis
DeBont (SPEED, TWISTER) remakes Robert Wise's subtle and terrifying 1963 haunted house tale as a computer-effects laden thrill ride. A professor (Neeson) and three subjects (Zeta-Jones and indie heroes Taylor and Wilson) spend an night in an old house with sinister secrets for the sake of a sleep disorder study...but no one gets much sleep. Based on Shirley Jackson's novel.

Customer Reviews

A remake that has the cgi as the star
If you saw the original, beware... The plot bears no resemblance to Shirley Jackson's psychological horror story. The sub-plots make no sense and dead-ends. There's lots of CGI and special effects, which are well done and are the star of the movie.

The sets for the house were the best part and are worth seeing. Liam Neeson must be sorry he made this film, and Owen Wilson, seems to be the comic relief, Zeta-Jones certainly looks good but isn't given anything to do except wander around looking colorfully tarty. Bruce Dern and Marian Seldes were probably just happy they had such small parts. This doesn't make it as a "good" bad movie, and it wouldn't really worth the trouble hating, except that it butchered a book that was both scary and intelligent.

Lacking in subtlety
I must begin by saying that I saw the original years before I saw this version so its hard not to make comparisons.

The first thing in the film's favour is that it takes what was a scary story anyway and tells it quite well. Secondly, there are a few spine chilling moments in the film - all borrowed from the 1963 film.

Unfortunately all this is undone by unsubtle effects and horror moments. I came away with the impression that Jan de Bont felt that the audience would be unsatisfied if they didn't see anything so threw in an effects driven finale...which spoils the ethos of the film.

Lines have been added to the story which are tainted with the usual Hollywood belief that audiences are esseentially stupid and points have to be reinforced.

The cast manage to make a good job of the material but at the end of the day Jan de Bont should not have been let near this. Its interesting to note in the accompanying featurette that the producers felt that the things you imagine can be much more powerful than what you see. I can only presume that this was why they wanted to make the film but somewhere along the line this idea was subverted.

In recent years, ghost story films have all been given "happier" endings, aiming for a redemption concept that tends to undermine the power of the story. This is no exception.

On a plus side, the transfer is excellent - the picture quality is clear and sharp. The sound is excellent even if some of the effects lack subtlety. The features are rather sparse comprising a short documentary and two trailers.

My advice - track down the 1963 original, expertly directed by Robert Wise. It is far superior. The 1999 remake is entertaining and has a few spooky moments but is disappointing overall.

A favorite of this horror fan
I thought this was a very good movie and am quite surprised to see so many negative reviews of it. I am a horror fan and a Shirley Jackson fan, so I am not judging this movie in an intellectual vacuum. It really does not bother me that the makers of this flick took Jackson's basic premise and went in a completely new direction with it. It would be all but impossible to dramatize Jackson's original novel theatrically because the bulk of the story lies in the emotions, thoughts, and fears of the characters, especially Eleanor. I felt that the film did a very good job of portraying the sad isolation and fragile emotions of Eleanor, and I liked the portrayal of the other characters. Catherine Zeta Jones is wonderful as the complex Theo. With the exception of one short scene, Lili Taylor was a more than adequate Eleanor. The special effects, with the exception of a short hair-brushing scene, are excellent and well done; they do not, in my opinion, take precedence over the story but richly add to the atmosphere of the house. The ghostly manifestations are appropriately creepy, tastefully restrained, and wonderfully subtle in detail. The only flaws I found in the movie are probably the result of time constraints; more time was needed in order to adequately explain Eleanor's growing obsession with the house and her acceptance of the impressions coming from the spirits of the children "trapped" in the house. The turning point, where Eleanor comes to understand the evils Hugh Crain committed in the house and magically discovers the existence of a second Crain wife, does not make adequate sense based on the facts shown to the viewer and thus cries out for further elucidation. The ending of the film is slightly unsatisfying yet somehow seems right and appropriate. While this movie is not really scary and does not reflect the much richer storyline of Jackson's original novel, it nonetheless strikes me as a surprisingly good, enjoyable movie, head and shoulders above most other films in the horror/suspense genre.