MovieChat Forums > The Haunting (1963) Discussion > That damned wallpaper!

That damned wallpaper!

posted 17 years ago by philgeorge
58 replies | jump to latest

I've skimmed this messageboard but can't find reference to what I consider probably one of THE most unsettling scenes I've ever witnessed on screen: The camera closing in and out on that raised/textured plaster/wallpaper during the night. Is that a hole in the paper? Why does it look like some twisted, evil lion's face? The changing light and creeping shadow! That horrible mumbling! The subtle rotation of the camera!(Let alone Eleanor's final realisation about her hand being squeezed!!) No CGI can ever match the skin-crawling unease of those few moments.

Despite first seeing the film when I was a young teenager, that scene has lodged itself indelibly in my head and continues to make the hairs on my neck prickle whenever I watch it to this day...

(Addition 15/12/09: The power of imagination never dies! This was used to good effect in the recent 'Paranormal Acitivy' - in fact the loud banging on the door must surely have been inspired by 'The Haunting'!)

[–] lizzikitti 17 years ago

I am right there with you!!! That is the scene that has stood out in my mind for the last 30 years!! That wallpaper and the mumbling, ie chanting and then Eleanor thinking that Theo was breaking her hand.....OMG!!!

All my siblings feel the same way about this movie. The scariest movie in their whole lives....

[–] Sonatine97 16 years ago

The best scene in the film for me, and there were many good scenes throughout. But this was just tapped may natural fears: of how one's imagination can really creep you out by simply putting scary faces to patterned wallpaper.

Imagination is a wonderful thing, but it can also scare the living daylights out of us. And this is what is wrong with Hollywood today: no imagination, just silly visuals, take it or leave it.

[–] lizzikitti 16 years ago

Totally agree!

The wallpaper scene was more terrifying to me because I didn't know what was holding her hand! She could feel the little bones of it's hand, she thought it was Theo, it was about to break her hand it was squeezing so tight....

My sisters and I wouldn't allow any parts of our bodies to hang off the edge of the bed that night. We all piled up in one sister's double bed as close to the middle as we could all get.

This movie is everything Hollywood is missing today.

[–] turtletommy 17 years ago

That scene has been brought up more than once on the board. I didn't see any dames in the wallpaper though! (smile) The wall looks to be either covered with a textured wallpaper or some sort of textured paint/plaster. I think most people see a face in it during the haunting scene. I've listened to the DVD's commentary with Wise and I can't recall if either Wise or the cinematographer specifically wanted the pattern to show faces, eyes or whatever in it or just be sort of a Rorschach test for the audience. No matter what it was done so well and simply too. That's the strength of the production in being so subtle about the haunting effects and leaving so much to our imagination. Brilliant!

[–] cookiela2001 11 years ago

The wall looks to be either covered with a textured wallpaper or some sort of textured paint/plaster.

That type of raised wallpaper is called Lincrusta, or sometimes Anaglypta. The former is the original recipe, and very heavy. The later was a rival product, made of lighter and more flexible material. They're associated with the Victorian era.

It is a heavy product...the wet pulp (which sometimes had linseed oil in it) is pressed through carved rollers, creating a base-relief pattern.

So, it's kind of like sculpture. Today you can search for cheaper versions under the term "paintable wallpaper"...though these that are made today are lighter in weight and less durable.

[–] AStrangeOldMan 11 years ago

@cookiela (great name and avatar, by the way!)

The creators of Disney's Haunted Mansion attraction took this to the next extreme, not only making deeply raised patterns in the wallpaper, but patterns that are obviously ghost-related. In fact, they use many seeming homages to The Haunting throughout.

"No fate but what we make." -Terminator II

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] AStrangeOldMan 11 years ago

Do you think it's just our 'learned response' to this type of wallpaper? People in the 19th Century seemed to love the stuff, but in the 20th and 21st it just seems too elaborate, claustrophobic and ...eerie. Is it our knee-jerk psychological reaction from seeing one too many haunted house films with this kind of wallpaper (usually peeling and full of black mold) that makes us feel uneasy?
Or is it just the damned inherent creepiness of the stuff to begin with?

"No fate but what we make." -Terminator II

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] AStrangeOldMan 11 years ago

Maybe - although I will state here and now there was no black mould in our house!

Like it NEEDS mold to be scary-looking?

"No fate but what we make." -Terminator II

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] gnomekid 17 years ago

I am absolute agreement! The entire movie is brilliant and terrifying, but that wallpaper scene made me want to run screaming and jump through/out the window, so to speak. The mumbling, when it reaches that crescendo - - wow, no kidding, I just got goosebumps, in all seriousness, just typing it! CGI is more often than not the lazy way out, as far as I'm concerned, too.

[–] paulbeardsley 17 years ago

What a lovely thread!

I'm one of those people who usually get all snotty about films based on books. "Ew, I say, it didn't QUAYT capture the ESSENCE of the text!"

But IMHO The Haunting works better as a film than The Haunting of Hill House works as a book - and I acknowledge that it's a darned good book.

The wallpaper scene is one of several reasons why I prefer the film to the book.

My other favourite moment occurs during the really loud banging scene. (That in itself was amazing. Ghosts usually creak, or rattle chains, or sigh in a way that could be explained away as the wind. Never before, AFAIK, have ghosts made noises which DEAFEN people!) The moment in question is when the picture goes still and quiet, and the two women appear to be figures in a photograph taken a long time ago. It's as if they have become two strangers from long ago who have lost all significance.

In fact the whole film feels like a bunch of "best scenes" strung together.

And I want to watch it again now! It's only been two months since I last watched it...

[–] turtletommy 17 years ago

Novel spoilers!

I certainly have shared my opinion here that I think the film is MUCH better than the novel. The screenwriter Giddings' adaptation was fantastic. The 20th century must have had a dearth of well-written ghost stories if Jackson's was considered the finest. I was pretty let-down by it I must say, after all the hoopla over it. But obviously Jackson is owed some credit for coming up with the idea and writing the novel, and the best of it was added to and improved upon by the screenplay and the filmmakers. From what I've read about Shirley Jackson herself, the lady had some issues, including mental health ones, and apparently the Eleanor character was in part based on herself. Jackson also I believe was into the occult.

[–] wesaynothin 17 years ago

I think it was paneling in a leaf pattern, not wallpaper. The cinematographer must have had some fun getting the shadows to fill in the space between the leaves so well. It seems so freaky because the human mind tends to create anthropomorphic images very easily. So suddenly that shadow becomes the face of the haunting going on outside the door.
Very effective. Absolutely chilling camera work there. This is seriously one of the best horror movies I have ever seen.

[–] lizzikitti 17 years ago

That was the scariest scene in the whole movie to me. It is strange that our minds will see faces in patterns like that wall. "Who's hand was I holding?" sent chills down my spine. None of us slept without covers that night.

I wish they would make more movies like this one nowdays. I don't think they can come close, but I wish they would try. No blood and guts, no nudity, no poorly done monsters, just pure terror dredged up from our own imaginations.

[–] pasnat 17 years ago

You want a reference to that wallpaper? Okay, you got a bunch, and add me to the list of people who thought that was the creepiest part of the movie. What a terrific movie, so much better than anything being produced today. It ranks up there with The Uninvited as demonstrating that suspense and story are more effective at producing terror than gross-out stuff. (Although I love Poltergeist.)

[–] lizzikitti 17 years ago

I so agree with that, pasnat. (I liked Poltergeist I and II, the third on shouldn't have ever been made)

[–] Owen-13 13 years ago

It was indeed deeply carved paneling and I agree it would have been great fun picking out that pattern and finding the angles and lighting to increase the effect.

[–] Norma_Snockers 17 years ago

Add me as another vote for the wallpaper scene. There isn't a hole in it though - its as someone has pointed out, a 'textured' wallpaper. Whatever though - I'll not sleep in a bed pushed up against a wall ever again - especially if there's anaglypta wallpaper.

Terrifying scene - this and the 'breathing' door!

Kathy

IKEA! Swedish for Sh*te!

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] jtyroler 16 years ago

I hadn't remembered the wallpaper until reading this thread. It's amazing what you can see in the patterns of things - wood grain, patterns in floors, and yes, that wall.

The other scary thing about that scene - how did Eleanor get out of bed?

But that pounding, pounding, pounding - like something out of Poe.

[–] noneabve1947 16 years ago

I don't think it was wallpaper but stucco plaster...what ever it was it really creeped me out!!....as a child my bedroom had stucco walls but a lot more abstact....nonetheless my parents had to put a cover over one section when I saw a malevolent face there.
seems I'm not the only one as these themes turn up in such shows as "One Step Beyond" and "Thriller"......yeah, that scared me.....
Rob