The Haunting (1999)

A psychologist (Liam Neeson) gathers a handful of people (Catherine Zeta Jones, Lili Taylor, Owen Wilson) for a study on insomnia. But in reality, what he's really studying is fear and to this end, he gathers them in a secluded manor with a malevolent history. Based on the novel THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE by Shirley Jackson (previously made into a film in  1963) and directed by Jan De Bont (SPEED). Robert Wise's modest 1963 B&W film of THE HAUNTING is a classic horror film that is subtle and has subtext. The budget has increased by leaps and bounds for this update and has elaborate special effects but it's lacks the genuine horror of the 1963 film. The special effects are abundant and first rate but you are too conscious of them being just that, special effects. De Bont has lost the horror and replaced it with CGI. This is a production designer's movie. Eugenio Zanetti's haunted mansion is stunning and a thing of beauty. But there's no movie to inhabit it. The screenplay unwisely doesn't let well enough alone and instead of an ambiguous unexplained haunting, everything is spelled out and Taylor's character is given a mission to free the spirits of abused children instead of the neurotic spinster of the novel. The acting, particularly Neeson and Wilson, is pretty bad. Even Jerry Goldsmith's score is forgettable. With Bruce Dern, Virginia Madsen and Marian Seldes.