Padme's Library: Friday's Film Adaption: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Friday, October 9, 2015

Friday's Film Adaption: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Summary:
The classic supernatural thriller by an author who helped define the genre

First published in 1959, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House has been hailed as a perfect work of unnerving terror. It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a "haunting"; Theodora, his lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers—and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.

Film:

A team of psychic investigators moves into a haunted house that destroys all who live there.

Release Date: September 18, 1963

Release Time: 114 minutes

Cast:

Julie Harris as Eleanor "Nell" Lance

Claire Bloom as Theodora "Theo"

Richard Johnson as Dr. John Markway

Russ Tamblyn as Luke Sanderson

Fay Compton as Mrs. Sanderson

Rosalie Crutchley as Mrs. Dudley

Lois Maxwell as Grace Markway

Valentine Dyall as Mr. Dudley

Diane Clare as Carrie Fredericks

Ronald Adam as Eldridge Harper

Uncredited roles

Pamela Buckley as First Mrs. Crain

Janet Mansell as 8-year-old Abigail Crain

Amy Dalby as 80-year-old Abigail Crain

Rosemary Dorken as Abigail Crain's Nurse-Companion

Verina Greenlaw as Dora Fredericks

Claude Jones as Garage Attendant

Freda Knorr as Second Mrs. Crain

Howard Lang as Hugh Crain

Paul Maxwell as Bud Fredericks

Susan Richards as Nurse

Hill House was built 130 years ago by a textile baron for his wife and children that they would never have. Instead it was filled with stories of tragedy and ominous tales of death that left the house uninhabited...or so it seemed. A century later, Dr. David Marrow discovers the house and, intrigued by its history, he invites three of his patients to the house as part of a sleep disorder study. Theo, Luke and Nell come to the sudden realization that sleep will not be on the agenda when ghosts of the past manifest in terrifying visitations and the house seems to take a particularly strong interest in Nell as Dr. Marrow''s study evolves into an examination of human fear.

Release Date: July 23, 1999

Release Time: 114 minutes

Cast:

Lili Taylor as Eleanor "Nell" Lance

Liam Neeson as Doctor David Marrow

Catherine Zeta-Jones as Theodora "Theo"

Owen Wilson as Luke Sanderson

Marian Seldes as Mrs. Dudley

Bruce Dern as Mr. Dudley

Alix Koromzay as Mary Lambetta

Todd Field as Todd Hackett

Virginia Madsen as Jane Lance

Tom Irwin as Lou

Charles Gunning as Hugh Crain

Debi Derryberry, Jessica Evans, Sherry Lynn, Miles Marsico, Courtland Mead, Kyle McDougle, Kelsey Mulrooney and Hannah Swanson as the voices of the children

Author Bio:
Shirley Jackson was an influential American author. A popular writer in her time, her work has received increasing attention from literary critics in recent years. She has influenced such writers as Stephen King, Nigel Kneale, and Richard Matheson.

She is best known for her dystopian short story, "The Lottery" (1948), which suggests there is a deeply unsettling underside to bucolic, smalltown America. In her critical biography of Shirley Jackson, Lenemaja Friedman notes that when Shirley Jackson's story "The Lottery" was published in the June 28, 1948, issue of The New Yorker, it received a response that "no New Yorker story had ever received." Hundreds of letters poured in that were characterized by, as Jackson put it, "bewilderment, speculation and old-fashioned abuse."