Line #15 Film/TheHaunting1999


1	[[quoteright:310:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thehaunting1999.jpg]]
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3	A 1999 remake of Robert Wise's [[Film/TheHaunting1963 horror masterpiece]], directed by Jan de Bont and starring Creator/LiamNeeson, Creator/LiliTaylor, Creator/OwenWilson, and Creator/CatherineZetaJones.
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5	Nell (Taylor), Luke (Wilson), and Theo (Jones) are invited to Hill House to partake in a 'sleep study' directed by Dr. Marrow (Neeson). The frightening old house seems to have a life of its own and terrifies the participants with strange happenings in the night.
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7	----
8	!!Provides Examples Of:
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10	* AdaptationalVillainy:
11	** While Hugh Crain was by [[AbusiveParents no means]] [[HolierThanThou a pleasant character]] in [[Literature/TheHauntingOfHillHouse the original Jackson novel]] or the original film, his attitude was suggested to come in part from the accidental death of his first wife. In this adaptation he is explicitly identified as the malevolent presence in Hill House and in life he not only intentionally drove his first wife to suicide (and is strongly implied to have attempted to kill his second when she discovered his crimes) but kidnapped and murdered children from his mills.
12	** While he isn't a villain, Marrow outright lies about the purpose for the guests staying at the house, while Montague, his book counterpart, and Markway, his equivalent in the 1963 film, were open about the supernatural nature of the experiment from the start.
13	* AdaptationExplanationExtrication: Eleanor shouts, "Who was holding my hand?" in homage to one of the original's creepiest moments. Problem is, the context is completely different and there's absolutely no reason for her to be saying it, although the circumstances could imply it was Hugh Crain doing so.
14	* AllTakeAndNoGive: Eleanor spent 11 years of her life taking care of her invalid mother, only for her sister Jane (whom never did anything for them) to inherit their mom’s apartment. Both Jane and her husband immediately decide to sell the apartment, not giving a damn that they’ll make Eleanor a homeless. When Eleanor protests, Jane says okay, she may live with them... as long as she’ll babysit their spoiled son.
15	* ArtisticLicenseGeography: Hill House, in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts, is described as being nine miles from its nearest neighbor. There is no location in the Berkshires that is anywhere close to being so isolated. Even one mile would be unrealistic.
16	* BadassBoast:
17	-->'''Nell''': Well, I've come home [[spoiler:Grandpa]]. And you--you can go straight to Hell!
18	* BedsheetGhost: Wait until you see the child ghost's body in the sheet. As in, formed by/from the sheet, rather than wearing it.
19	* BigDamnHeroes: Theo, Luke and Dr. Marrow break through the door of Nell's room, arriving in time to save her from being raped by Crain.
20	* BlankSlate: Nell again, and [[ShoutOut referenced]] by Theo when she calls her a blank canvas: "I could paint your portrait right on you..."
21	* CaptainObvious: Owen Wilson's entire role. "That staircase won't hold your weight!"
22	* ChekhovsGun: The doors and their inscription.
23	* ClosedCircle: The gates are locked every night when the Dudleys leave and, as in both the book and the original movie, they stay in town since "no one will come any closer than that" and "they couldn't even hear" if they needed help. In a concession to the modern setting, Dr. Marrow has a cell phone for emergencies (and he uses it to call the hospital before Todd leaves with Mary), but this is, [[DiabolusExMachina conveniently enough]], broken during Marrow's rescue of fugue-state Nell from the rickety wrought-iron staircase.
24	* ContinuityNod: The sound effect used for the pounding upon the doors is the same one used in the original movie.
25	* CreepyCircusMusic: As one reviewer put it, "Because no horror movie would be complete without creepy circus music." [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] by Hugh Crain having built the house (supposedly) for children to live and play in, hence a rotating carousel room.
26	%%* CrucifiedHeroShot: [[spoiler:Nell]]
27	* DeathByAdaptation: Luke. [[spoiler:Like in the original, Nell dies too, but in a completely different manner.]]
28	* DeathOfAChild: Hugh Crain killing his children [[spoiler: is what sets the events of the film into motion.]]
29	* DemBones: What Nell discovers in the fireplace.
30	* DiedHappilyEverAfter: [[spoiler:Nell]] dies confronting the ghost of Hugh Crain, who kept the spirits of the children he killed imprisoned in the house. He is banished to Hell, and [[spoiler:her]] spirit joins those of the children as they all float up to Heaven. What makes this unusual (and a bit disturbing) is that thanks to the earlier scene in the mirror carousel room which implies reincarnation, it isn't clear if it is [[spoiler:Nell]]'s spirit or [[spoiler:Carolyn]]'s that ascends.
31	* DissonantSerenity: Nell, for a good portion of the movie. It's genuinely creepy.
32	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: The assault upon Nell in her bedroom by Hugh Crain--his ghost plunges down from the ceiling toward her with a wide, leering mouth (filled with many grasping arms, no less), while the bed is pulled toward him and Nell is held pinned in place by [[RefugeInAudacity numerous long, thin wooden spikes decorated with barbs]]. The directors described the ceiling moving downward and [[DoubleEntendre the spikes growing longer]] as a manifestation of Nell's claustrophobia, but hmmm... See also HeirClubForMen.
33	* DullSurprise: The reactions of most of the actors to the CGI, but particularly Dr. Marrow and Luke during the rescue of Nell from the bedroom assault.
34	%%* DysfunctionalFamily: Nell's.
35	* EthicalSlut: Theo is bisexual and has both a boyfriend and a girlfriend - who clearly know about the other one since she says they don't like each other. She also flirts openly with Luke and shares tender moments with Eleanor. She's not presented as bad and is shown to properly care for Eleanor in a romantic way.
36	* TheEyesHaveIt: The stained-glass windows in the scene where Crain assaults Nell in her bedroom, complete with RedEyesTakeWarning. More subtle examples occur when statues shift their eyes or turn their heads out of view of the characters; an easily missed one occurs with the hooded statue which Theo, Luke, and Marrow pass as they race to find Nell in the nursery.
37	* FacialHorror: Poor Mary was the first to leave the house after being injured by wire from a clavichord. She might very possibly be left with facial disfigurement...or something worse.
38	* FashionHurts: Theo dons a pair of thigh-high Prada boots (Milan, not New York!) in her early scenes. As she tells Nell, "They're killing me... Small price to pay for such [[GroinAttack savage kicks]]."
39	* {{Foreshadowing}}: One of the guests was about to tell the others that there's more to the story of the house, but then a clavichord wire suddenly broke and cut her eye.
40	* ForcedFromTheirHome: Eleanor joined the sleep study because she was forced to leave the apartment where she had lived with her late mother for years, after her selfish sister and brother-in-law decided to sell it.
41	* FriendlyGhost: The ghost children unlike Hugh Crain's ghost.
42	* GeniusLoci: The house is a particularly frightening one.
43	* HalfwayPlotSwitch: A study on fear (disguised as one on sleep) and the psychological implications of this (and Nell's insane reactions to it) turns into a horror-filled action piece where the characters have to figure out how to end a haunting, or at least escape it alive.
44	* HearingVoices: Nell hears the voices of the ghosts, who turned out to be very childish voices.
45	* HeirClubForMen: Crain's reason for wanting Nell to stay at Hill House, first implied by Carolyn/Nell's pregnant reflection in the carousel room, then made graphically explicit in the bedroom assault scene.
46	* AHouseDivided: Before the phenomena become undeniably real, much of this occurs--Nell and Theo hear the pounding but Luke and Marrow don't, blaming it on faulty plumbing, Nell is disbelieved when she thinks the flue is something else, and when the message defaces the painting, Luke and Theo turn on each other while Nell blames everyone. This last scene is particularly effective since, as the viewer soon learns the children's ghosts painted the message, when Marrow asks which of them did it he genuinely doesn't know the answer--so as far as he knows, one of them is indeed secretly plotting to raise the fear factor.
47	-->'''Nell:''' Whoever did it... it's cruel.
48	* {{Hypocrite}}: Much like in the original film, Theo calls out Eleanor for being a possible AttentionWhore... which Theo has pretty much been the entire time.
49	* IntimateHairBrushing: There's a moment where Theo (who is bisexual) combs Nell's hair. As opposed to Theo's casual flirting, this is more of a FriendshipMoment between them.
50	* IronicNurseryTune: There's one Nell hums a lot, which [[{{Foreshadowing}} turns out to be]] a song played by the music box in the nursery.
51	* ISeeDeadPeople: Nell can see ghosts from the sheets and curtains.
52	* JerkAss: Nell's sister. After their mother dies she evicts Nell because she can't make rent, and offers her the choice of becoming a live-in-nanny or pretty much living on the streets. Then she gives her an old car like it's an act of immense charity. Nell quite satisfyingly tells her to go fuck herself.
53	* LipstickLesbian: Theo is openly bisexual (with a girlfriend and boyfriend [[{{Polyamory}} at the same time who know about each other]]). She wears her hair long and has fairly feminine attire, though it isn't exaggerated.
54	* LongLostRelative: [[spoiler:Nell, to the children, Carolyn, and Hugh Crain, or vice versa.]]
55	* MadeOfPlasticine: That was one ''slow-moving'' and completely ''un-sharp'' lion head flue to take a man's head off ([[BloodlessCarnage cleanly]], no less).
56	* MindScrew: Instead of the book and first movie's questioning of Nell's sanity and whether the haunting is actually real, this version plays with Nell's ancestry and her relation to the house. In two very surreal scenes, Nell has an identity crisis [[spoiler:(possibly brought on by her being her great-great-grandmother reincarnated)]] and can't even recognize her own face in the mirror, then discovers that the locked nursery where Carolyn had her baby looks exactly like her own mother's bedroom back in the city. This last could be explained by the house's GeniusLoci mirroring what was obsessing and haunting Nell's own mind, which has rather disturbing implications...
57	* OffWithHisHead: Poor Owen Wilson.
58	* OminousMusicBoxTune: In the locked nursery.
59	* OneWingedAngel: Crain manifests himself as a giant, cloud like ghost in the climax of the film.
60	* OrphansPlotTrinket: Nell's necklace, it turns out.
61	* OurGhostsAreDifferent: Hugh Crain and the ghost children he murdered.
62	* PaterFamilicide: A particularly disturbing variation: Hugh Crain, the EccentricMillionaire who built Hill House, not only seems to have killed or [[DrivenToSuicide driven his wife to her death]] (and the second one too), but the children from the mills whom he 'adopted' were also slain by him, or else allowed to waste away due to neglect. So even though, presumably, the mitigation of what ruined his life (no offspring) should have made him happy and fulfilled, the industrialist instead destroys the very thing he'd been seeking for so long.
63	* PeekABooCorpse: The skeleton in the fireplace.
64	* ThePowerOfLove: Eleanor defeats Hugh Crain's ghost by using this (and luring him to the iron door that leads to Hell). It's evident in her BreakingSpeech towards him.
65	* PreserveYourGays: Theo is set up as the slut as well as the bisexual woman in a way that make it clear to the viewer that she'll be one of the first to die. [[spoiler:Surprise surprise, it's a trick. She turns out to be the morally upstanding EthicalSlut, and she does survive.]]
66	* PsychicLink: Nell seems to have one with the children's ghosts, possibly Carolyn and Hugh Crain as well.
67	* PsychicPowers: Aside from Nell, both Marrow's snide commentary and her own reactions to the house imply his assistant Mary has these too. [[GenreSavvy Which may be why she was injured and made to flee the house]].
68	* ReactionShot: The interest, alarm, and terror of the child-ghosts is represented this way, using the cherub carvings around Nell's bed.
69	* SceneryPorn: The sets of the house itself are intricate and ''gorgeous''.
70	* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: Nell's quest to free the children from the mills.
71	* ShackleSeatTrap: When Crain animates the woodwork in Nell's room, ornamental spikes above the bed stretch out to pierce the bed all around Nell's body, boxing her in.
72	* SpookyPainting: Of Hugh Crain; it becomes even worse when the defacing somehow smears/eats away the paint so that his face becomes a skull.
73	* TemptingFate: Luke really shouldn't have attacked Hugh Crain's painting...
74	* TomboyishName: Theo is a bold and open bisexual woman.
75	* TooDumbToLive: [[spoiler: Luke's]] death really comes across as this. Even if we [[OneDimensionalThinking generously ignore that he could have just rolled to the side to get off the haunted carpet]] (perhaps he was too scared to think of that), he's still in the fireplace for around 15 seconds just standing there (even though you'd think he'd realize that if the carpet tossed him in there, it's not a safe place to stand around in), and then a rather slow moving lion's head flue swings down to decapitate him. Even though it only moves about 5 miles per hour, and he's facing towards it and has time to react, he stupidly just stands there and lets it lop his head off. Even worse, Nell starts yelling for him to get out, only for him to keep standing there and die like an idiot.
76	* TheVoiceless: Only one of the two assistants spoke more than a line or two, not that they're relevant to the story anyway. Lampshaded, perhaps, by the character having the same first name as his actor.
77	* UndeadChild: The ghost children after Hugh Crain killed them and burnt them in the fireplace.
78	* UnwittingTestSubject: Variation - Dr. Marrow is attempting to use a fake sleep study as a smokescreen for an experiment on fear. There's plenty of carefully constructed tales to help put the idea of haunting in their heads, the dispensing of some of it to the ladies and some to Luke to encourage mistrust and suspicion, denial of events as having a natural, rational explanation or simply being imagination, and so on. The attitude behind this is exemplified when Marrow tells his supervisor, [[ManipulativeBastard "You don't tell the rats they're actually in a maze!"]] and, even after Nell starts descending into madness, still continues making recordings about what's happening. Nell is clearly aware of some hidden agenda early on when she inserts herself into Mrs. Dudley's script for Luke's welcome and says "We're like rats in a maze!" to Theo, but when it turns out the house really is haunted...
79	* WhatTheHellHero: Marrow, for hiding the nature of the study and how he treats his victims. While Luke begins the suspicions of the good doctor's motives, and Nell is justifiably upset, it's Theo who calls him on it, and satisfyingly so.

Context Film / TheHaunting1999