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'!)

[–] gcasden 16 years ago

When I first saw this film as a kid, I recalled this sceen involving wallpaper.It wasn't untill I was an adult that I learned that the viewer is watching a wall textured with plaster in the shapes of laurel leaves or scrolled florettes. In any event, there can be no doubt that this is one of the most disturbing, frightening sceens in the film. Truly terrifying. This movie still scares me as an adult! Like Rod Serling once said,"when we were kids, we loved to be scared." He was talking about his childhood memories of being unable to turn away from scarey images in films because for him, there was something captivating to it.I enjoy watching The Haunting, even though it still makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

[–] myuschen 16 years ago

...another face? (subliminal?)

Check out the carriage accident scene at the beginning.
appx 3min in.

The shot where the hand drops into the frame from above.
Just to the right of the hand.....just under the broken spoke....
looks very much like the face of a man peering from the background.

Ain't imagination great?

All in all a wonderfully scarey film.

[–] yeoffthecat 16 years ago

I SAW the carriage accident about 50 times. Since I have the video, I kept replaying it, trying to make sure of what I was seeing!!!
I'm so-o-o glad that someone else saw the man's image, and that I am not going crazy. Tell me this? Do you think that was done deliberately? He really looks
very scary and menacing.

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] NancyLarned 16 years ago

WHOA!! Are you kidding??? Hearing about that face just freaked the living $h!t out of me!!! This movie is so brilliant. That is SOO creepy...

[–] Birugirl 16 years ago

I am actually watching it on Youtube, but I don't see it. Can you specifically point it out? Sorry and thanks in advance!

[–] turtletommy 16 years ago

The scene where Eleanor is awakened by voices and crying and you see the wall behind her that has some kind of plaster or textured surface; the camera starts slowly panning in on the wall to a section of it which looks like a face. Spooky.

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] TOASTnJAM 16 years ago

That wallpaper scared the crap out of me when I first saw it as a kid way back when. When I saw it again a couple of years ago it still chilled me. What made that scene great is that there was no special effects used. But then slowly you start to see a face emerge out of the pattern.

What I have always wondered about that scene is did the filmakers intentionaly put a face in the wallpaper or is our minds puting a face there.

Looks like a demon serpent to me btw.

[–] aerostonefloyd-1 16 years ago

Yeah, I always saw a face when that scene pops up.

[–] yeoffthecat 16 years ago

Listen up everybody, when I posted the comment in 11/08, I was speaking of the menacing image between the spokes of the carriage wheel near the beginning of the film where Mrs. Crane was killed by the tree. Of course I know that the face on the bedroom wall was deliberately done, and I agree; it appeared to have been done with texture paint.

[–] rodin_indi 16 years ago

Has anyone here read the short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman? If you guys liked the wallpaper scene you might enjoy this short story.

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] 16 years ago

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[–] NancyLarned 16 years ago

I read it in an english class; I didn't get it then, and it kinda annoyed me; but I'd like it better reading it now.... That would be a good horror film.

[–] skylands 13 years ago

I'm watching the HDNET broadcast now and the face that I think you're talking about has it's left eye [right eye as we're viewing it] is formed by a splinter from the spoke. Does look weird, though.

[–] NancyLarned 16 years ago

I TOTALLY agree!!!!! I watched this film alone, at night, and then had to go to sleep... the wallpaper scene was absolutely terrifying. The moaning, the face, the shadow..... AH! And I thought The Exorcist was scary... nothing can match The Haunting for pure terror. Plus, it's the first film I've seen in over a year to make me not want to go to sleep....

[–] hodie 16 years ago

Lol, count me in as another viewer who thinks that scene is the scariest scene in the film. I've seen this film a dozen times over the years and that scene still scares me. It's really disturbing.
Having now read this thread, henceforth I'll always think of that scene as "the wallpaper scene"!

Was you ever bit by a dead bee?

[–] Marmadukebagelhole 15 years ago

Whenver I try to get people to watch this I always mention the wallpaper.

[–] 15 years ago

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[–] skylands 13 years ago

The raised/textured plaster looks like it's a fine, old William Morris textile design, like much of the other tapestries and stuff.

The Haunting was recently broadcast in HD and you can really see some details that were previously obscured. The lighting effects on the texture indentations, forming two creepy eyes and mouth are a lot less subtle now, but no less unearthly.

[–] BlondeVixen 13 years ago

As a child, The Haunting scared me so bad I couldn't move. I would get as tensed up as the actresses in the scarey scenes.

[–] anthonycashmere 13 years ago

All,

I agree. That wallpaper was terrifying!! This film is terrifying to this day!

[–] Sonatine97 12 years ago

.... not only is this a very scary moment, but very very effective in getting its message across to the viewer.

But what is even more amazing is how very little, in monetary terms, this "special effect" would have actually cost! Subtle lighting, patterned wallpaper, a camera and an eerie score. I doubt the whole scene would have cost more than a couple of thousand dollars. And yet the end result could be measured in the millions in terms of utter shock value!

Proof-positive that throwing millions at computer programs in order to return a similar result isn't always cost effective, as well as being unimaginative. I'm not saying CGI doesn't have its place in film production (The Lord of the Rings, being an obvious case in point); but sometimes having tighter budgets brings out far more creative results.

"One must first get behind someone, in order to stab them in the back!"

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] MystMoonstruck 10 years ago

Consider that this film had a budget of only $1 million (reported on TCM)! The first decision was to shoot in b&w~thank goodness! The choice of how to do special effects sends this up to a 10 for me. There couldn't be a high enough score, and this is from a person who has viewed it well over 100 times.

Yes, that scene is one of the creepiest though it might be tied with the pounding on the doors and hallway, along with the sounds especially of footfalls.

I have to say that the footfalls and doors click with me especially because of a house I lived in; I rented one of the two upstairs rooms. *shiverrrr* Yes. I lived in a haunted house! The family went out EVERY evening that I know of, and I wonder if they knew about the sounds and eerie occurrences. The occurrences ended up chasing away two of the renters of the other room (one at a time). I never mentioned these things to either renter. Each told ME about what she was hearing and couldn't live around it. I'd been studying parapsychology since I was 10 years old. I took it pretty much in stride though it was creepy at times.

Besides that, there was my maternal grandparents' old house...

"The Haunting" brilliantly captures this feeling!

Just a note: I've always found the closet door in the bathroom very creepy because the pattern in the wood looks like a demonic creature. I should try to take some pictures of it someday. Also, our hallway has a cold spot; open the closet door, and step on the threshold. *brrrrr* What is especially strange is because it's directly across from the furnace, only about 3 feet away. Then there's the reaction our pets have to that stretch of hallway...

(W)hat are we without our dreams?
Making sure our fantasies
Do not overpower our realities. ~ RC

[–] sir-walt 12 years ago

Audio certainly enhanced the experience as the camera panned that damned wallpaper. The "horrible mumbling" sounds like a demented preacher continuing a hellfire rant scary enough in its addled cadence alone.

[–] AStrangeOldMan 11 years ago

An entire year later? Where have I been? The phenomenon that we're describing here has an actual name: matrixing, the tendency for the human mind to create 'faces' and 'animals' out of what are usually simply patterns. Wise used the already present psychology to ...wonderful effect. Given a long enough look at the wall patterns, we're sure to pick out what we think is a 'face', maybe several. Was that intentional? Likely. We'd have seen it anyway, according to this theory.

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