YMMV / The Haunting (1999)

• Awesome Music: The whole soundtrack, really, done by the incomparable Jerry Goldsmith. Of particular note are the Creepy Circus Music from the carousel room (including the more disturbing variation later when it is played in counterpoint to the deep, loud, groaning sounds Hill House is known for), the music from the climax (starting from when Crain manifests out of his Spooky Painting), and the genuinely unsettling strings which play the main theme.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • The giant, corpse-like statue of Hugh Crain trying to drown Dr. Marrow (in a fountain of blood, no less). He doesn't get a chance to explain what happened to him due to Nell screaming, and the event is never mentioned afterward.
  • Mary's moment with the harpischord, even geared as it may have been to remove the only possible psychic in the group (other than Nell) from the house, comes across as this too since other than one recording Marrow makes it's never mentioned again, and neither she nor Todd (the guy who takes her to the hospital) ever come back.
• Complete Monster: Hugh Crain is a child killer who took his desires to have a family to twisted and dangerous extremes. Abducting children from his mills, Crain murdered them when they tried to leave, mutilated their bodies, and burned them in a fireplace, before covering up his crimes. Driving his first wife to suicide, Crain is also implied to have murdered his second for discovering his secret. After his death, Crain returned as an all-powerful ghost who keeps the spirits of the children trapped in the house and kills any newcomers.
• Fair for Its Day: Despite Theo being shown as a polyamorous bisexual, she's still an Ethical Slut and her attraction to Nell is shown to be just as tender as it was in the original - actually even more so. And they avoid going down the Girl on Girl Is Hot route.
• Funny Moments: In contrast to the original, Mrs Dudley fails at being creepy. And when she tries to give Theo the same speech she gave Nell, Nell stands beside her and deadpans the rest of the speech with her.
• Narm:
  • A lot of the dialogue, particularly Marrow and Luke's awkward conversation in the hallway at midnight, his inane "I wonder what happened to him" in reference to Crain's statue, and much of Nell's dialogue during her final confrontation with Crain.
  • Hugh Crain's ghost has been described as "the ghost of Cotton Mather" and looks like a giant Ringwraith.
  • Luke's death manages to destroy any semblance of tension the movie has left at this point due to how contrived and ridiculous it is: First, he's dragged away on a carpet that moves on its own, screaming the whole time instead of simply rolling off the carpet, then he's catapulted into the fireplace as the carpet comes to a sudden halt, and finally, just as he's standing up, he's cleanly and bloodlessly decapitated by a lion's head flue that drops out of the fireplace on a swing and moves at hilariously slow speed and he could easily have dodged. The acting in this scene is even funnier than the death itself — Theo pauses a few seconds before screaming like she missed her cue, Dr. Marrow winces — not like he's horrified by the gruesome death of a colleague, but like Liam Neeson has just realized what kind of movie he's in and is desperately trying to remember how much he's getting paid — and Nell just says "Oh, no!" in a tone that sounds less like nauseated horror and more like she just dropped her phone in the water fountain.
  • Did we mention that the lion head roars when it swings down out of the fireplace? You know, because lions are scary, or something?
  • Eleanor is now a Messianic Archetype who defeats Crain with The Power of Love—Tropes Are Not Bad, but the presentation...
  • Imagine Crain appearing on Grand Designs. "Right, over there I want a pool with a giant statue of me looking dead and a fountain of blood, over there I want a statue of an eagle, above the fireplace I want a lion head that drops out of the fireplace because it will be really funny and no-one will expect it and over there I want the Gates of Hell. Okay?" (Kevin McCloud looks slightly scared)
  • Turning a Nothing Is Scarier haunted house suspense thriller into a fast-paced action movie would be a difficult thing to pull off even in the hands of a more capable director. Even ignoring the outdated CGI (and the cast's Dull Surprise in response), we still have Luke whizzing off down the hall as if he's on a Slip 'n' Slide and bouncing into the fireplace.
  • The film trying to pull a Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane with the noises on the first night, after we already saw a blatantly supernatural event with the piano wire.
  • Hugh Craig’s ghost letting out a T-Rex roar, among other stupid sound effect choices.
• Nightmare Retardant: The numerous cases of Special Effect Failure didn't exactly help the film's attempts to be scary.
• Orphaned Punchline: "Oh God. Whose hand was I holding?" In the original Robert Wise film, that line came after a really tense scene that focuses only on a scared Nell's face while Theo re-assures her off-screen. Nell thinks she's been holding Theo's hand during the entire conversation, and is terrified when she realizes she isn't. Here, the line is awkwardly dubbed in after Nell has been thrown from her bed by the ghosts, so it doesn't fit the context whatsoever and comes off as an incredibly shallow reference to a better film.^note The scene was indeed present in the original shooting script (pg. 86) and presumably intended to be filmed, but was presumably cut
• Special Effect Failure: There's ridiculous CG up the wazoo, not to mention horribly outdated CG.
• Spiritual Successor: This site makes a case for this film not being a remake of The Haunting (1963) but of The Legend Of Hell House. It also may be the closest we'll ever get to having a The 7th Guest movie.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Two of them! Both the "fake sleep study that is actually a fear study" (and the ethical nature thereof) and the investigation to discover the nature of the haunting and how to end it are intriguing plots... but combining them in one movie and not allowing either the full time to be developed causes both to suffer.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: Although the film is considered a real step down compared to the original, Lili Taylor's spirited performance as Nell is seen as a highlight.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: In the original Haunting, the doctor straight up tells the other three guests that they're studying the "ghosts" in Hill House. In this film, he's doing a study on group fear, but tells the others that they're only doing a sleep study. While deception is sometimes used in these cases, this change makes the doctor seem unnecessarily dishonest, even a little cruel.
• Values Dissonance: While not a terribly insensitive depiction of a bi/pan person (see above), Theo is still shamelessly flirtatious with both Nell and Luke (albeit in a Slap-Slap-Kiss way with him), despite her claims that she already has a boyfriend and girlfriend, which carries the hoary old stereotype that "bisexual = slut" and would undoubtably be handled more tactfully today.

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