Once, a long time ago, I thought it would be a great idea to make coconut flour biscuits. Why I chose coconut flour out of all gluten free flours, I cannot tell you. Perhaps it was the first type that occurred to me and I figured one non-wheat flour was as good as any. So, I found a recipe, followed it to the letter, and the kitchen smelled great while the biscuits were baking.

When they were ready, my mouth watered as the butter melted on the chosen first biscuit. I hadn’t had anything like biscuits since I was medically required to become strictly gluten free, and I Could. Not. Wait. It was going to be great.

Only…

They were just about the worst tasting thing I have ever put into my mouth. I spit it out and dropped the rest of the biscuit back on the pan in disgust. Then something strange happened. They were so unbelievably awful that my brain couldn’t grapple with the memory of their awfulness. Every five minutes or so I came back to the tray of biscuits with the thought, “Certainly, they can’t be THAT bad.” But I was wrong. I was wrong about six times before I broke that loop of insanity. Upon the last failed attempt to find just a trace of something edible in the biscuits, I quickly threw them in the trash before I had time to seventh guess myself.

When it comes to things we are drawn to over and over again, I think the more common experience is to relive things we like, rather than things we don’t. One of those things for me since about 10 years old is the movie The Haunting. Introduced as a film that I could only watch when I stayed home sick from school because it was too gosh darn scary for my younger sister, it of course, became my instant favorite.

Directed by Robert Wise, probably best known for directing West Side Story and Sound of Music (although classic horror and sci-fi titles also appear in his catalog), it is an adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s brilliant horror novel, The Haunting of Hill House.

The novel (which is incredible and everyone should read it) starts and ends with the same eerie paragraph: “No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under the conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids, are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against the hills, holding darkness within-”

It tells the story of four strangers that have been invited to a purportedly “haunted” house to conduct a study on paranormal phenomena. The house seemly asserts itself as an abstract entity with its own sinister agenda, focusing on the most vulnerable character: Eleanor Vance. Eleanor experiences her sense of self disappearing inch by inch into the house and as the story progresses, the difference between what she experiences outside herself and what she has built up in her mind gets harder to distinguish, what is real and what is metaphor.

The flimsy line between experiencing the paranormal and descent into madness touched upon in the book is captured and made all the more tenuous by the chaotic camera choices in the film adaptation. In the movie, Hill House is described as not having a single 90-degree angle within the whole mansion which causes an off balance sense of distortion for the characters.

As the movie progresses, the camera seems to lose its grip on reality along with the Eleanor Vance and swings at strange angles around corners and giddily climbs up spiral staircases. And just as the slightly imperfect architecture causes the characters of the film to question their senses, the purposeful usage of a camera with a flawed lens contributes to the sense of unease the viewer experiences knowing something is off but being unable to quite place what.

The suspense of The Haunting is not driven by a sequence of building action, but rather a continued breathless anticipation of something horrible. By 1963, most major films were shot in color, but The Haunting is in black and white, which amplifies the relief felt in well-lit rooms

and deepens the anxiety of hidden things lurking in the shadows.

I can think of few other films that better develop an atmosphere of fear caused almost entirely by light contrast, whimpering, and disembodied thumps on the wall. The film’s strength is through suggestion, where things are ominously implied, but nothing defined, otherwise a character gawping at her own clenched hand in the middle of the night would not be nearly as frightening.

Now, without fail, almost every time I’ve attempted to have a conversation about The Haunting with other people, I inevitably have to clarify, “The one released in 1963.” That’s because, unfortunately, there is another one. Much more recent. Starring Liam Neeson, Lili Taylor, Owen Wilson, and Catherine Zeta-Jones. And it is, well, I’m reticent to say “bad” about any movie… How about thoroughly unenjoyable? Oh, I know: Difficult to consume.

It’s not just that the 1999 The Haunting blows it as an adaptation. If you love movies and books equally, you find ways of making internal compromises when it comes to adaptations.

It’s not just that the house is ridiculously enormous to the point where it is entirely unbelievable that any one person could have financed its construction. There are historic royal palaces that are smaller. It would make more sense as monastery except for the abundance of hideous ornamental sculpture and woodwork that all the characters insist on describing as “beautiful.”

It’s not even the weak story and predictable scares. At least not on its own, not completely. Campy, cliché ridden horror movies can still be enjoyable on some level.

No — the thing that tips The Haunting (not the one from 1963) right over the edge into the unenjoyable is the shockingly overblown CGI. Imagine the worst overwrought, unnecessary CGI you’ve ever seen in something, and I promise this is sublimely worse.

The Haunting was released during that period of time when CGI was made less expensive and people were starting to do some really exciting things with it; some really successful, some… not so much. Audiences in 1999 were wowed with frozen bullets in The Matrix

and barely noticed the sophisticated effects in Fight Club.

1999 also saw the first fully computer-generated supporting cast member in Star Wars Episode 1.

Whether you like these movies or not, first steps must begin somewhere, and in many cases those breakthroughs have some identifiable element of taste. But finding that tasteful discernment in the special effect choices of The Haunting (not the 1963 original) is quite the challenge. It’s as if while conceptualizing The Haunting (not the better one from 1963), someone loudly guffawed at the time-tested idiom “Less is more” and instead envisioned all the things a multitude of awful baby faces could do.

If my feelings are not clear, I do not like this movie; and yet, I periodically return to it because despite my memories of unpleasantness, I just can’t believe it is THAT bad. Maybe it’s because of my great love of the source material and its earlier film adaptation.

Maybe it’s because I’ve experienced how some movies improve with age. Whatever the reason, I’m drawn back to The Haunting (1999 not 1963) just as I was to those coconut flour biscuits, trying to find something, anything palatable, but every time I do, I’m reaffirmed in my convictions that this is movie I will never enjoy. That is, until I begin to doubt again. At some point, I imagine, I’ll find myself giving it yet another try and I’ll finally, hopefully toss it into the experiential trash of “been there, done that.”

THE HAUNTING vs THE HAUNTING