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'!)

[–] hodie 11 years ago

Creepiest scene in the film. I also remember the strange voices speaking gibberish in the background, one low and one higher.

Get me a bromide! And put some gin in it!

[–] eweland 11 years ago

That wasn't wallpaper - it was some form of molded plaster tile. I doubt any wallpaper would have a depth that would start to appear as faces - in the viewer's mind.

The sound effects are disturbing, but this film just didn't scare me like others have.

The Kubrick film IS far superior, in every way.

[–] AStrangeOldMan 11 years ago

The Kubrick film IS far superior, in every way.

As much as my three-year-old niece's crayon pic of a ghost is as good as the Mona Lisa.

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

[–] eweland 11 years ago

Kubrick's The Shining is also mentioned as one of the scariest movies ever made. Mona Lisa is a self-portrait - how many other people carry around a painting with them, their entire lives? Da Vinci knew it was a joke, and liked seeing people's reaction to "her."

The Kubrick film IS far superior, in every way.

[–] AStrangeOldMan 11 years ago

A kid's birthday party balloon as compared to an actual shark.
"Little pig, little pig, let me come in?" I was absolutely terrified.

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

[–] catbookss 10 years ago

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…

Oh god, YES, YES, and YES! Also the sound of the crying child. *shudders* Scariest scene in the movie.

[–] Severian-6 10 years ago

I'm pleased to see that so many other people were impressed (or should that be traumatised) by what, for me, was always the most terrifying scene in the film. Imagine watching it as a child less than ten years old, which was my first encounter with "The Haunting". I was already seeing faces in the patterned wallpaper in my bedroom, so this movie seemed handcrafted to scare the living daylights out of me - which of course it did. I must have got weeks of nightmare material out of that one screening on BBC 2. Thankfully, I did not have a censorious mother, but one who understood that I *loved* being scared by such stuff, whether cinematic or literary. As she used to have to repeatedly explain to my less-sympathetic aunts and uncles. 

"Nobody {¥€|$ with the Jesus"