Julie Harris was cast by Wise, who found her ideal for the psychologically fragile Eleanor, though during production she suffered from depression and had an uneasy relationship with her co-stars.

Wise and cinematographer Davis Boulton planned sequences that kept the camera moving, utilizing low-angle takes, and incorporating unusual pans and tracking shots.

The film was remade in 1999 by director Jan de Bont, starring Liam Neeson, Lili Taylor, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Owen Wilson, but that version received generally negative reviews from critics.

Dr John Markway narrates the history of the 90-year-old Hill House, which was constructed in Massachusetts, United States, by Hugh Crain for his wife.

The group find the mansion's walls were constructed with angles askew, resulting in off-centre perspectives and doors that open and close by themselves.

The doctor, Luke and Theodora explore the library with the treacherous spiral staircase, but Eleanor has a severe reaction that prevents her from entering.

Her instability worsens as she enters the library and climbs the spiral staircase, followed by Markway, who tries to coax her down despite the stairwell coming loose from the wall.

[9] Wise read the book and found it frightening; he passed it to screenwriter colleague Nelson Gidding, with whom he had worked on the film I Want to Live!

[11] As Gidding crafted the screenplay, he came to believe that the novel was not a ghost story at all, but rather a compilation of the insane thoughts of the lead character, Eleanor Vance.

[12] Wise and Gidding travelled to Bennington, Vermont, United States, to meet Jackson, who told them that it was a good idea but that the novel was definitely about the supernatural.

[13] Nonetheless, elements of the insanity concept remained in the script, so that the audience was left wondering whether the supernatural events in the film were in Eleanor's mind or whether they were real.

The number of characters was cut down, the backstory was significantly shortened, most of the supernatural events depicted in the novel were kept off-screen, and the greater part of the action was set inside the house to heighten the audience's feeling of claustrophobia.

Wise had been asked to come to the United Kingdom for a Royal Command Performance of West Side Story, and during the trip made the financing pitch to MGM Borehamwood.

[14] Russ Tamblyn, also under contract to MGM, initially turned down the role as Luke because he felt that the character was "a jerk", although he thought that the script was very good.

Although uncredited actress Rosemary Dorken is seen climbing the stairs and going past the camera, it is Tilton's body that suddenly appears in shot again as the Nurse-Companion hangs herself.

[30] Wise and cinematographer Davis Boulton also wanted to make distances in the film (such as hallways) look longer and darker than the audience would anticipate.

[30] The effect was created by tying portions of the steps and railing to a cable that ran inside the staircase's central support column.

Wise had initially wanted the actors to simply play up "the 'quality of [being] cold' in [the] sequence", but he quickly recognised that an additional visual effect was needed to more clearly emphasise the temperature drop.

There are a number of rapid cuts in the film that throw off the viewer's sense of spatial orientation, and Dutch angles are used to imply that reality is off-kilter.

], however The Westminster Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Kenneth Alwyn, recorded a selection from the score, reconstructed by Philip Lane[41][self-published source?

[44] In Houston, Texas, a local cinema promoted the film as so chilling that it held a contest to see which of four patrons could sit all the way through a midnight screening; the prize was $100.

[46] The Haunting opened to mixed reception, the consensus generally being that it was a stylish film but had major flaws in the plot and lacked excitement.

Variety called the acting effective, Davis Boulton's cinematography extraordinarily dextrous and visually exciting, and Elliott Scott's production design of the "monstrous" house most decidedly the star of the film.

However, the unnamed reviewer felt Gidding's screenplay had "major shortcomings" in that the plot was incomprehensible at points, and the motivation for the characters was poor.

[48] Writing in The Atlantic magazine, critic Pauline Kael called the film "moderately elegant and literate and expensive", but criticised Russ Tamblyn for being "feeble [and] cowardly-comic".

I've never felt this in an audience toward crude, bad movies… But the few scattered people at The Haunting were restless and talkative, the couple sitting near me arguing—the man threatening to leave, the woman assuring him that something would happen.

After a second viewing a few weeks later, she told her friend Libbie Burke that she and her son Barry "nearly went to sleep", and that the scariest part of the day was that she had been given a parking ticket while inside the theatre.

[58] In 1990, media mogul Ted Turner announced he would begin colourising black-and-white motion pictures to make them more pleasing to audiences watching his cable networks.

[62][63][64] The project went into turnaround and a complete script was written, but Spielberg demanded more thrills and action sequences while King wanted more horror.

[66] This adaptation, directed by Jan de Bont, starred Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Owen Wilson and Lili Taylor in the roles of Markway (now named Marrow), Theo, Luke and Eleanor.