One of the finest ghost stories ever written was Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. It was made into a 1963 movie The Haunting regarded as one of the best supernatural movies in cinema history. The movie was modestly received when it first came out and scared many viewers. Using cleverly designed sets and distorted angles, the film stands out as a first rate psychological horror movie that is unmatched. A remake in 1999 starring Liam Neeson, Lilli Taylor and Catherine Zeta Jones did not capture the original film’s essence and failed at the box office. Although the 1973 movie The Legend of Hell House incorporates themes of the Hill book, it was based on Richard Matheson’s book and he wrote the screenplay.

There is no gore in the book or original movie but instead relies on the terror the people experience as the entity makes itself known. This theme inspired Stephen King for his book The Shining and later for a made-for-television story Rose Red. As the story unfolds (in the book and movie) it comes clear that Eleanor becomes the target of the entity and one point even possessed by it. The unsettling end where Eleanor dies leaves one to speculate whether it was caused by the entity or her own emotionally disturbed state. There is no doubt the house is haunted by a malevolent entity but now it has claimed a new victim whether by its hand or not. And these haunting words, a voice over by Julie Harris who played Eleanor at the end, sums it all up:

Hill House has stood for 90 years and might stand for 90 more. Within, walls continue upright, bricks meet, floors are firm, and doors are sensibly shut. Silence lies steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House. And we who walk here… walk alone.

Important note to parents: Neither the book or movie is for young kids and has themes that might trouble parents.