10 Best Ghost Story Movies
9. The Haunting
Robert Wise was a director the likes of which we see all too little of these days: supremely versatile, he worked across multiple genres - musical, western, science fiction, horror - and produced classics in all of them.
1963's The Haunting was Wise's crowning achievement in horror, and arguably one of the very best films ever made in the genre. Adapted from Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House (itself one of the greatest horror novels ever written), the film centres on a parapsychologist's study of a fabled mansion thought to be haunted.
In common with The Innocents, the success of The Haunting can largely be attributed to its ambiguity; as much as there is cause to believe the phenomena is genuinely supernatural, the 'ghosts' seem as attached to the psychological troubles of the visitors (particularly Nell, portrayed by the brilliant Julie Harris) as the troubled history of Hill House itself.
Beautifully shot in black and white with Ettington Park in Statford-Upon-Avon used for Hill House's exteriors, Wise took inspiration from his old producer Val Lewton to deliver a masterclass in 'less is more' filmmaking, using editing, sound and camera movement to suggest the presence of otherworldly entities, but never showing anything directly.
Alas, Jan De Bont's lamentable 1999 remake took the opposite approach, drowning out any scares with CGI. Hopefully the upcoming Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House, from director Mike Flanagan, will fare better.