Robert Wise's filmization of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, and a personal retreat to his earliest directing jobs for producer Val Lewton: small, literate, understated horror films. The scope of this one, after a tempestuous prologue, is small to the point of claustrophobic: an assembly of assorted psychics and agnostics for an academic study of a reputed haunted house; and the ghost (or evil spirit) remains unseen (or, in a Henry Jamesian sense, within). Exquisite wide-screen black-and-white photography by David Boulton; expressive use of empty (or apparently empty) space; very grown-up treatment of a lesbian clairvoyant (Claire Bloom) and the personal tension between her and a high-strung spinster (Julie Harris). With Richard Johnson and Russ Tamblyn. (1963) — Duncan Shepherd
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