Editorials
We Who Walk Here Walk Alone: Revisiting ‘The Haunting’ at 60
“Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within…and whatever walked there, walked alone.” – Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House (1959).
Of all the subgenres of horror, the haunted house story has provided the most opportunities for slow and subtle terror that creeps and crawls its way under the skin and into the psyche. The Old Dark House (1932), The Uninvited (1944), The Innocents (1961), Burnt Offerings (1976), and The Changeling (1980) stand among the best that not only the haunted house film, but all of horror have to offer. For many, the absolute pinnacle of these films is Robert Wise’s 1963 masterpiece of suggestive horror The Haunting. Based on the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, the film owes much to the influences of the past while still carving a way toward the future, is populated by rich and relatable characters, and is a deeply felt tragedy of the longing to matter in this big, lonely world.
Robert Wise came up through the ranks at RKO in the 1940s under the influence and presumably tutelage of its two greatest geniuses: Orson Welles and Val Lewton. The influence of these two mentors is evident onscreen in The Haunting in several ways. The film’s technique is in many ways Wellesian—deep focus, unique camera placement and movement, and the composition of the frame. As in the Orson Welles films Wise worked on as editor, Citizen Kane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), characters are set in different planes of depth within the frame, but all are in focus. They are then surrounded by grandiose set design, in the case of The Haunting, the rather baroque architecture of Hill House, which is not too far removed from the Amberson Mansion. Unfortunately, Wise had a great falling out with this first mentor as the studio forced him to re-edit the picture with a reshot ending without Welles’ involvement. Welles never forgave Wise for it and the two never spoke again. Still, the fingerprints of Welles remained as Wise grew as a filmmaker and his influence is very present in The Haunting.
Like the other great haunted house film of the 1960s, The Innocents, The Haunting is beautifully shot in that greatest and rarest of formats—black and white scope, or full widescreen; Twentieth Century Fox’s Cinemascope in the case of the former and Panavision in the latter. The techniques used are modern extensions of the kinds of pioneering work done by the builders of filmmaking language, and perfected by the masters of the 1930s and 40s. As expert as the technical aspects of the film are, they never detract from the story as is the case in the best Orson Welles films and those of Wise’s other great mentor Val Lewton, who gave him his first opportunity to direct a film with The Curse of the Cat People in 1944, another psychologically subtle film about a haunting.
Lewton’s influence is deeply felt in the way the film’s story is told. Lewton was far more interested in the psychological than the sensational. The horror films made between 1942 and 1946 at RKO by the Lewton unit are ambiguous, character-driven, and suggestive. The horror comes from what is not seen rather than from what is shown on screen. His philosophy was that what the audience imagines is far more horrifying than what the filmmaker can show. This makes Lewton’s films an interactive experience for the audience. Wise would often comment that people would say to him “you made the scariest movie I’ve ever seen, and you didn’t show anything.” This is the key to the continuing effectiveness of The Haunting. As with the best of the Lewton movies, it forces the active participation of the audience in that it provides just enough information and allows the imagination of each viewer to fill in the gaps.
This also allows for the psychological underpinnings of the story to work their way into the mind of each viewer and allows them to place themselves inside the situations on screen, or even behind the eyes of a character. For example, as Eleanor (Julie Harris) stares at the wall as she hears voices coming from the other side in one of the film’s most terrifying sequences, is it her or is it the audience that may or may not see a face forming in the shapes in the carvings on the wall? It happens so subtly that some may not even notice it upon first viewing. We are also allowed to ask questions like “is this all just in Eleanor’s mind?” before having the questions shifted when other evidence is presented. The film refuses to lay its cards on the table for as long as it possibly can, even in the iconic sequence in which the door bulges and flexes from some force behind it in the presence of believers and skeptics alike. That force remains unseen because Wise learned his lessons well from Lewton and perhaps H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe before him—what we imagine is far more horrifying than what we see.
One of the reasons why The Haunting works as well as it does is it is populated by characters who stand at different points on the spectrum of belief in the supernatural. Dr. John Markway (Richard Johnson) believes in the validity of the spirit realm, but wants to prove it scientifically so even the greatest skeptic could not poke holes in his methods and theories. Luke Sanderson (Russ Tamblyn) only believes in how much money he can make on Hill House after he inherits it and sells it off to the highest bidder. Theodora (Claire Bloom), known as Theo, is gifted with extra sensory perception but seems to think this could just be an uncanny ability to read people. In her youth, Eleanor had what Markway describes as “a poltergeist experience” in which “showers of stones fell on your house for three days.” But she brushes it off saying that her mother told her it was just the neighbors throwing rocks. More importantly, Eleanor desperately wants it all to be true, and feels that her inclusion in the Hill House experiment could be the one important thing she has been waiting for all her life. In the final act we are introduced to Markway’s wife Grace (Lois Maxwell) who feels that her husband has been wasting his life and destroying his academic reputation by chasing after ghosts.
These characters also have a great deal in common with those found in Lewton films. As in Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, and The Seventh Victim, the lead characters in The Haunting are women, Eleanor and Theo, who are mirror images of each other. Eleanor, or Nell, is modest, retiring, something of a fragile flower desperate for belonging whose confidence has been chipped away by years of being the sole caregiver for her long-ailing mother. Theo is the opposite—confident, stylish, and in a way rather daring for 1963, openly gay. Same sex female attraction was often buried in the subtext of the Lewton films, specifically the three I mentioned above, but here, one does not need to dig very deep to find it as a key component of Theo. The focus of the film, however, is Eleanor. It is her story, and it is her tragedy.
The Haunting is a film of deep despair. Eleanor, so desperate to belong, so desperate to matter in this cold world, is swindled by a fraud. Not Markway or any of the companions she meets in Hill House, but the house itself. It convinces her that being within its walls is her destiny and her staying there for all time an inevitability. She clings to the line from a song sung in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, “journeys end in lovers meeting,” and she believes that Hill House is her lover, the one who will take her for who she is and not demand anything from her. But Hill House is not a lover as she imagines. It is a killer and a swallower of souls. Everything it does, it does for its own benefit. It is the epitome of “The Bad Place.” It does not give, it only takes.
When we are introduced to Nell, she believes there is something waiting for her that will solve all her problems. Instead, she becomes trapped by an obsession that ultimately destroys her. The film’s chilling final line proves that her loneliness only intensifies after Hill House takes what it wants—“we who walk here walk alone.” This is a change from the last line of the novel which repeats the famous opening that concludes “whatever walked there walked alone.” The change to “we who walk here” makes it all so much more personal. And savage. She is so desperate that her journey will end in lovers meeting, believing that Hill House will complete her that she becomes its willing prey. Instead of finding purpose and belonging, she will spend eternity trapped in solitude.
In various interviews Stephen King has conveyed a story about a phone call with Stanley Kubrick as he was adapting The Shining for what would become his 1980 film. To paraphrase the conversation, Kubrick said something like, “don’t you think that all ghost stories are inherently optimistic because they believe in an afterlife?” King thought about this and responded, “well, what about hell?” to which Kubrick responded, “I don’t believe in hell,” and hung up. This interchange somehow defines for me the conclusion of The Haunting, a film that is decidedly not optimistic about life after death. In the world of the film, an afterlife is proven, but not one of hope and joy, but of silence and abandonment. In the end, Nell seems to be trapped in a kind of hell. It is as if Dante’s ancient words should be inscribed upon the doorframes of Hill (Hell) House—“abandon hope all ye who enter here.” Hill House, not sane, stood for ninety years and may stand for ninety more. And those it takes it owns. And those it owns walk alone.
In Bride of Frankenstein, Dr. Pretorius, played by the inimitable Ernest Thesiger, raises his glass and proposes a toast to Colin Clive’s Henry Frankenstein—“to a new world of Gods and Monsters.” I invite you to join me in exploring this world, focusing on horror films from the dawn of the Universal Monster movies in 1931 to the collapse of the studio system and the rise of the new Hollywood rebels in the late 1960’s. With this period as our focus, and occasional ventures beyond, we will explore this magnificent world of classic horror. So, I raise my glass to you and invite you to join me in the toast.
Horror was thriving so well in the 1980s that movies like Pen Densham’s The Kiss (1988) would understandably get lost in the shuffle, only to then gain their fans later on in life. Even still, this one Canadian-American curio has had a more challenging time than others, as far as contemporary reevaluations go, which is very likely due to the movie’s limited availability—at least as of this write-up.
However, the scarceness of The Kiss, while a bit annoying, makes it like catnip for ‘80s horror completists everywhere. Hopefully, a lot of them will walk away satisfied after watching this hidden gem.
Even though The Kiss was intended as the first of several horror collaborations between Astral Pictures and TriStar, as well as the first feature produced by Densham, Richard B. Lewis and John Watson’s Trilogy Entertainment Group, it ended up being the only one produced from that former union. Once the movie was released, TriStar’s distribution jitters—they opted for a regional rollout—did the $6-million flick no favors. TriStar’s cold feet toward horror releases have been well noted, but The Kiss still did a tad better than Night of the Creeps (1986), another genre outing that flopped due to its regional opening.
Shot in Montreal, but set in Albany, New York, The Kiss—which was still called The Host just a few months before its October premiere—concerns an average middle-class family and their forthcoming situation. The uncanny problem in store for them was, in fact, set in motion some years earlier. As that hot and dusty flashback to the Belgian Congo shows, a familial curse was set upon the two Dunbar sisters well before Meredith Salenger’s teenage character was born.
Meredith Salenger, Nicholas Kilbertus and Mimi Kuzyk in The Kiss
The Kiss, which was based on a story by co-writer Stephen Volk (Ghostwatch) and penned by both Volk and Tom Ropelewski, has the outward appearance of The Stepfather (1987). This movie, though, is anything but a gender-flipped retread of that classic domestic disturber. For starters, The Kiss is far less grounded in reality—that much is clear from its unsettling opening scene. There, a trusting girl (Priscilla Mouzakiotis) is the victim of her own deceptive aunt (Céline Lomez); the movie’s titular act, and the story’s first shock, becomes the means of transferring an ancient evil from one host to another.
In the present day, Salenger’s role of Amy Halloran, a religious schoolgirl, is dealt a harsh blow in life once her mother, Hilary Halloran née Dunbar (Pamela Collyer), suddenly dies in a freak accident. But rather than a complete stranger sweeping the Halloran widower (Nicholas Kilbertus) off his feet some months later, Joanna Pacula’s character is that chosen temptress. Here, Pacula plays the grown-up version of the afflicted girl last seen in the movie’s opener. Since Amy’s mother is insistent about there being no reunion between estranged sisters, and she even contemplates buying a gun shortly before her tragic demise, it’s presumable that Aunt Felice poses a threat to her family.
The Kiss isn’t a movie ever too concerned about its own predictability. The audience is indeed often one step ahead of the story here, but also keep in mind how every one of those steps is loud. Take, for instance, the death of Amy’s mother; the Halloran matriarch goes out in garish, gruesome fashion, as a supernaturally commandeered truck sends Collyer’s character through a store window first, then leaves her one leg short. The directorial enthusiasm truly comes out in horrific moments such as these.
The Kiss is always sure to revel in its characters’ ills and misfortunes. So if the plot doesn’t impress, then its lurid parts should. Amy’s mother’s exit scene was proof of an eager, first-time horror director proving his worth. Then, bestie Heather (Sabrina Boudot) survives to tell the tale of a bizarre escalator mishap that, despite showing relatively less gore, spikes viewers’ empathy meter. The wilder bits of this movie, however, commence with that inevitable hookup between Felice and Amy’s bewitched father; their kitchen coitus is paralleled by Amy’s feverish classroom terror. The outcome there is a disquieting cross-cut of sex magic and a young woman’s menstrual onset plus hallucinations.
Sabrina Boudot in The Kiss
From foam appliances to bladders, that parade of special effects in The Kiss casts its own spell on the audience. Felice’s familiar, a visibly malevolent cat, was realized here with several models, some more articulate than others. Admittedly, the demon cat’s not as convincing as most of the effects here, but accepting that artifice, as opposed to fighting it, will make the whole experience way more enjoyable. As for the makeup used to manifest Felice’s inner villainy, it is more minimal and subtle than one might like; yet the work done to turn Pacula into an antithesis of herself is nonetheless compelling.
The otherworldly perils and dreadful goings-on wouldn’t work half as well as they do in The Kiss without the story’s contrast effect. Finding frights in picturesque, extremely ordinary settings was something that took off in the ‘80s, thanks to that sweeping shift to locales like the suburbs. And Amy’s home, a replica of a real Montreal suburban house, is the ideal battleground for any proper good-versus-evil story. It’s also prime real estate for this movie’s satanic panic-inspired horrors.
Because of their ostensibly similar plots, The Kiss has been compared to The Exorcist (1973). Except in Densham’s movie, the sinister, non-Christian entity targeting a teen girl lies within something less apparent and, perhaps, more devastating upon its exposure. To an outsider, Pacula’s Aunt Felice is too beautiful and unobjectionable to ever suspect of being a monster. More suspicious is how quickly she rips into the fabric of the Halloran home. Felice’s mere presence upsets the “texture of family life,” according to the director.
The demon cat in The Kiss
Taking out Amy’s mother and best friend, and distracting her father, would suggest The Kiss is playing by a different set of rules. It is initially leaving its adolescent target unsupported in a rather grim scenario. In contrast, though, this story offers up a surrogate parent who does her best to fill in the holes of Amy’s eroding home life. Mimi Kuzyk does good work as that family friend and doctor, Brenda, who guides the lost child without also steering her in any one direction; she is naturally skeptical of Amy’s accusations until it’s almost too late to do anything about them. So although The Kiss does an admirable job of undoing the main character’s support system, it never leaves her without a lifeline. This dark movie, in spite of everything that’s transpired, doesn’t deprive itself of light and hope.
The Kiss is a potent mélange of familiar ideas. If not for the director’s surprise flair for horror, though, the movie would have been less effective. What a shame that Pen Densham didn’t continue with the genre. As for Joanna Pacula, she is, too, owed credit as the wicked vixen opposite Meredith Salenger’s pitiable Amy; she never fails to be unsettling in her role. Pacula makes Aunt Felice a sexy yet intimidating character.
For horror that steadily doles out madness and menace, while also delivering a flashy and ghastly conclusion, The Kiss is certain to please. Yes, it’s cheesy all the way, but most favorably, everyone involved plays everything straight. That kind of commitment goes a long way with this movie.
The Kiss
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