Maybe I erred somewhere in my philosophy of why I watch horror movies, but I really thought that I was supposed to be scared during them. Well, scared, or grossed out, as the cheesy horror flicks of recent years have felt the need to do.  Also, if we laughed, or even smiled, we did so for the cleverness or the script, cultural references, or spoofing nature of such that made us. However, when a movie, billed as a horror film, that takes itself seriously, inspires not just smiles, or chuckles, but outright belly laughs, during it’s most "terrifying" scenes, then something is seriously wrong in cinemaland.

Such is the case in Jan De Bont’s blockbuster mess, The Haunting, which substitutes effects, boo-scary suspense scenes, and an intimidating castle-style fun house, for intelligence, cohesiveness, and most of all, sheer entertainment value. The story is based upon a book, a potential strike already, by Shirley Jackson entitled The Haunting of Hill House. I have not read the story, so I cannot judge how well it follows, but I have to imagine that since the book is fairly well known, that it must be pretty good. As in most book adaptations, a lot has to be told by the characters, so that you can understand what is going on. That job falls in the normally capable hands of Liam Neeson, as a doctor/researcher/something..I don’t know, who gathers 4 people together, for experimentation, and help with insomnia. At this point, the story still has potential. It introduces an interesting premise. Isolating sleepless people in a haunted house to experiment about the interactive effects of fear on sleeplessness, I am paying attention. I am paying attention! Then, everything goes horribly awry. The walls start talking, noises out of nowhere, people scare others by coming around corners too fast, ho hum, yawn, yawn. I actually had no trouble sleeping here. The plot, what there was to show of it, dragged along so lethargically, that they had to throw in a loud noise, or have something jump out at you, to keep you from snoring. May I offer a suggestion to the characters? Sit through one viewing of this movie, and if you still cannot sleep, consult a physician, because you have a genuine problem!

I tried, as hard as I could to think of, or find something redeemable here, but it just did not happen. The effects were nice, at times, nothing breathtaking. There were shifting, faces in curtains and walls, statues coming to life; been there seen it. The house was impressive, and intimidating to say the least, but a bit hokey in it’s contraptions; definitely Bob Vila’s worst nightmare. A grand castle style structure with detailed Gothic sculptures, All in all, a cross between Dante’s nightmares, and that cheap imitation circus that always comes to small towns.

So then I looked at the performances. Hmm, nothing there really. Neeson, looks lost, Jones, just vamps it up, and screams every now and then, Wilson never really breaks surfer dude wandering into a foreign environment-mode. Worst of all though, is Taylor, an independent film standout whose forays into big budget movies recently (Ransom, and now this) It shows me that she should stay in those films, because apparently when her check goes up, her acting ability disappears.. The only redeemable performance, comes during the films intruiging setup, and it comes from the caretakers wife, who is deadpan, and chilling in her delivery, and ominous warnings. But when she leaves, so does the acting ability of the rest of the cast.

That leaves the story, oh my goodness, definitely not. There are gaping holes in the story, such as, why is Jones’s characters bisexuality even mentioned, because it never becomes an issue, despite early flirtations between Jones, and Taylor. Secondly, Neeson’s assistant is hit in the eye, and leaves on the first night with one of the patients, and then is never seen, nor mentioned again. In retrospect, the rest of the cast should’ve joined her, the only point of this occurrence that I can see, is that it explains why they are trapped inside the house. Worse than that though, they are trapped in a dead plot. It is slow, never really developed, wanders all over the place, and worst of all, BORING! It is definitely the most boring "horror" (and I use that term very loosely) movie I have ever seen. It is an insult to the genre indeed.