MovieChat Forums > The Haunting (1963) Discussion > I tried to watch this movie in it's enti...

I tried to watch this movie in it's entirety 5 times this week...


I don't know why, but each time I fall asleep instantly in the first 50 minutes of the movie. I watch at least one or 2 movies a day, everyday, and I don't fall asleep like that. I don't know, maybe it's the fact that the black and white is really dark, and that they just talk and talk and talk blah blah blah blah during the 1st hour? In fact, is it supposed to be a good horror movie at all? I guess I'll try one last time, it's supposed to be a cult horror movie...they said!

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Hey finally I watched it until the end, and it's ridiculously boring.

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Gothic horror really tends to be on the "talkie" side, and this one is no exception. I first saw it in the late 80s, when I was a teen, and thought it was terrific. At the time, I thought the black and white only made it a better, more effective film (same thing with Night Of The Living Dead).

I can't see it holding too much appeal for many younger people, though. The story is too contained and too slow by today's standards, likely.

Having said that, I understand exactly what you mean. I have never, ever been able to get through Rosemary's Baby, after multiple tries.

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Perhaps its a generational thing.

I belong to another site of writers and there is currently a thread devoted to the first paragraphs of works to see 'if you'd continue reading the book after the first paragraph'. The overwhelming number say they wouldn't, given the three samples because they're: 'boring', 'overstuffed with description', 'don't have any action', 'aren't practicing modern minimalism', or are 'purple prose'.

Those anonymous samples are taken from Who Goes There? (The Thing), multiple award-winning novel and considered to be one of the century's best sci-fi/horror hybrids, Flowers for Algernon, another classic multi-award-winner, the film adaptation of which as Charly led to an Academy Award for Cliff Robertson, and 2001: A Space Odyssey, also considered an unassailable classic of sci-fi.

These are writers making these assertions, mind you - so if they are 'bored' with classics, what can we expect from people who aren't as deeply involved with "literature"?

No insult intended - we just have extremely different tastes, perhaps, as I said, stemming from a difference in experience and generation.

No fate but what we make. -Terminator II

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I really enjoyed Who Goes There. I read it when I was about 16 - it's a short story, if I'm remembering it correctly? It had just the right amount of creepy, and the setting was perfect. I also enjoyed Jackson's source material, but a lot of people who loved The Haunting (movie), seem to be down on the book.

I first saw the movie when black & white films still popped up on TV regularly, so I could appreciate them more than younger people probably do today. I find The Haunting to be perfect. Even when there's nothing particularly going on, the film has a ton of atmosphere. Though, I will say, as I got older, I found Eleanor increasingly annoying.

Still, I get what the OP was saying. Although I really enjoy the pacing in the movie, there are other movies that people seem to love that I just can't sit through. I've already mentioned Rosemary's Baby, but I also don't understand the love for 2001. Total snoozefest. Much like the OP, I've given both of those movies a number of chances, and I couldn't get through either of them in a single sitting.

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[deleted]

Personally I'm of the belief that the average person alive today has a pathetically short attention span and virtually no ability to understand or appreciate anything that's older than they are.

Most people I know can't even handle watching a black-and-white movie, regardless of its other qualities. In fact, I'd say most can't handle a movie that doesn't have any modern actors they're familiar with. What chance do those people have of finishing a book written more than a decade ago, or understanding the appeal of a movie like The Haunting?


There's a lot of truth in those two paragraphs.

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No there isn't. They've actually done reputable scientific studies and attention spans have not declined. This is just a cultural myth, one perpetuated by arrogant "my generation blah blah..." type of nonsense. (Proper adults realize that every generation has its merits and defects).

That's the first paragraph; the second has nothing of merit to even prove totally erroneous.

This movie is fairly boring because it's boring. Yes I like movies from all decades (and even books from all millenia! gasp!), yes I'm young, and yes there are plenty of slow/plodding (and yet interesting!) movies made in recent decades.

This movie is just hokey, poorly acted, and ultimately unsatisfying. The book is pretty awful too. That's the problem with it, not the audience of whatever generation one wishes to malign out of some misplaced pride (how anyone can be proud about what they had no control over, their birth time, is hilariously sad to real adults...especially, again, considering that there is no objective generational superiority to begin with).

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Every generation does have its merits and defects. The reality is, in general terms, the more recent generations do have lesser attention spans than those before them. Sorry, but it is true. This doesn't mean it's true of you, or that there are those from prior generations that it's true of as well. Generalizations by their nature have exceptions.

This has nothing to do with arrogance or thinking "my" generation (or others) is superior than others. That in itself is an arrogant and presumptuous assumption.

This film has been acclaimed by many top notch people within the film industry, and has also been borrowed from by the same. If you found it boring, then you did. You may feel differently in another 10 or so years. You wouldn't be the first or the last to change your mind on it, seeing it again at a more mature age. I don't say or mean that disparagingly. No matter how bright you may be for your age, you may not be able to grasp the nuances of this film. That's just the way it often is, no disrespect intended.

I don't know you, and you don't know me. Perhaps in 10, 20 years you'll still find this film hokey and poorly acted, or perhaps, as many others have posted, you'll discover it had more depth than you originally were able to get.

You sound quite defensive about your generation. That isn't what I intended. I don't know what the other poster intended, and obviously can't speak for them. But if you find "talky" films that are character-driven, such as this film is, boring, as some do, and don't find psychological nuances of interest, then no, you'll never find this film anything other than boring.

The reality is many of younger generations can't get into films in black and white -- hence colorization. If that weren't the case, there wouldn't have been any purpose to colorization, but clearly there was.

There is also the reality that technology has moved very fast over the past 20, 30 years, and as a consequence a focus on that with far less emphasis or interest in and regard for the past -- i. e. history. Steve Jobs and his legacy is but one example.

Of course no one has any control over when they were born, and there is no generational superiority; that's in your own mind, not what I was saying at all.

If you didn't like the book (I loved it, Jackson was a brilliant writer) or the film (ditto), reasonable people may disagree. I have no problem with that.

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People are so, weird for lack of a better word, to exposition heavy movies. To me, if what they're saying is interesting and the cinematography is done well I don't really mind it as much.

My sin really likes it, he's 13. But then, we've exposed him to a lot of slow-burn horror than more action oriented horror so that may have something to do with it. I'm not downing movies that are more action heavy. I just think they both can be enjoyable.

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I just feel the talking made it seem like the characters were old friends and I was sitting around listening to them chat for hours. I do believe it made them feel like real people whereas many horror movies make their characters cardboard cutouts there only to scream their lungs out and be killed. So I don't mind lots of talk. I'm just a sucker for a dark, Gothic atmosphere which this film definitely had.

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That is funny because I have watched it five times in the past week.

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