I'd been avoiding Haunted for so long, as I loved James Herbert's novel as a kid I didn't want to see it get ruined or changed from what I imagined it as.
I know it's not a classic story to begin but it's terrible to see director Lewis Gilbert butcher the living hell out of it. He tones it down by taking it out of the modern age and turning it into a period piece therefore neutering it into a ho-hum BBC movie of the week, with terrible dull lighting & camera work, melodramatic music and cliche "scares" galore. The character of David Ash was a moody, alcoholic asshole in the novel and in the film all his flaws are taken away making for a insanely boring character. Aidan Quinn & Kate Beckinsale do well with what they have but it's never enough to save the film from the borefest that it is.
1 missing dog out of 5
1 comment:
I caught about 10 -15 minutes of this on TV years ago. Ash did seem kind of boring, and two dimensional.
I always intended to watch it from the beginning some day but never got around to it.
Like you, I enjoyed the novel.
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