Archives: A
- E F - N O
- Z Posters Message
Boards
Who
We Are and Why We Do What We Do
BLU-RAY DVDs:
Batman Begins
Black Hawk Down
Blade Runner
Casino Royale
Dark Knight
District Nine
Defiance
Fast and Furious
Fast and Furious movies set
Fifth Element
The Hangover
Incredible HULK
Inglorious Basterds
Iron Man
Kill Bill 1 & 2
James Bond Ultimate v1
James Bond Ultimate v2
James Bond Ultimate v3
Julie & Julia
Moon
Public Enemies
Rambo box set
Silence of the Lambs
Sin City
This is Spinal Tap
Terminator
Terminator Salvation
Terminator 2
Top Gun
Total Recall
300
Transformers: Revenge of Fallen
Ultimate Matrix coll
Twilight
Underworld
Watchmen (dir cut)
X-Men Trilogy
X-Men Wolverine
BLU-Ray for family DVDs
Bolt
A Bug's Life
Cars
Chronicles of Narnia set
Coraline
Ghostbusters
Harry Potter & Chamber of Secrets
& Goblet of Fire
& Order of Phoenix
& Prisoner of Azkaban
& Sorcerers Stone
Ice Age/Alvin + Chipmunks set
The Incredibles
Jungle Book
Juno
Kung Fu Panda
Monsters Inc
Nightmare Before Xmas
101 Dalmatians
Pinocchio
Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy
Pixar short films
Ratatouille
Santa Clause
Santa Clause 2
Sleeping Beauty
Spiderwick Chronicles
Sleeping Beauty
Snow White & 7 Dwarfs
Star Trek motion pictures set
Star Wars Prequel Trilogy (1-3)
Star Wars Trilogy (4-6)
Transformers SE
Wallace and Gromit
Wall-E SE
We're Kidlet Safe
Search engine
by FreeFind
click to search site
Now in Release:
2012
A Perfect Getaway
The Blind Side
A Christmas Carol
An Education
Fifty Dead Men Walking
Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
Invictus
Is Anybody There?
It's Complicated
Loss of a Teardrop Diamond
The Lovely Bones
My Sister's Keeper
New in Town
Nine
Pirate Radio
Precious
The Proposal
Red Cliff
The Road
Shrink
St. Trinian's
The Strip
Surrogates
Taken
The Uninvited
Up in the Air
Young Victoria
DVDs on Sale:
Aliens Quadrilogy (set)
An American in Paris
Batman
Begins
Blade
Runner
Coraline
The Dark Knight
Day the Earth Stood Still
Defiance
Die Hard collection 1-4
District Nine
Last Days of Fillmore West
Fast & Furious movies set
Forrest
Gump
Gone
With the Wind
The Hangover
Alfred Hitchcock set
Indiana
Jones trilogy
Inglorious Basterds
Iron Man SE
Lord
of Rings 12 discs
Marx Bros set
Ultimate
Matrix set
Milk
Monty
Python - Holy Grail
Moon
Public Enemies
Sin City
South
Park Movie
Star
Wars Trilogy (1-3)
Star
Wars Trilogy (4-6)
Terminator Salvation
Up
Wall-E
Watchmen - Ultimate cut
Woodstock
X-Men
Trilogy
X-Men Origins Wolverine
DisneyPixar & family DVDs Looney
Toons
Alice
in Wonderland
Bambi
Beauty
and the Beast
Beverly Hills Chihuahua
Bolt
Cinderella
Coraline
E.T.
Harry
Potter yrs 1-4 set
Harry Potter
& Chamber of Secrets
& Goblet of Fire
& Prisoner of Azkaban
& Sorcerers Stone
& Order of Phoenix
Kung Fu Panda
The
Lion King
Mary
Poppins 45th LE
Pinocchio
Ratatouille
Santa Clause
Santa Clause 2
Shrek Trilogy
Simpsons Movie
Spider-Man Trilogy
Star Trek movies set
Star
Trek TOS (TV)
ST:TNG complete tv set
Star Wars Trilogy (1-3)
Star
Wars Trilogy (4-6)
Wallace and Gromit
Wall-E SE
Golden Age DVD
Volume
1
Volume
2
Volume
3
Volume 4
Volume 5
Volume 6
Rocky & Bullwinkle DVD
Season
1
Season
2
Season
3
Popeye the Sailor DVD
v.1 1933 - 1938
v.2 1938 - 1940
v.3 1941 - 1943
75th anniversary coll.ed.
Click for full size poster |
The Haunting Starring
Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Owen Wilson, Bruce Dern and Lili
Taylor |
IN SHORT: A scream. For all the reasons. [Rated [PG-13]. 117 minutes.]
For those of you too young to remember The Exorcist first hand, here's a real life recollection. First time out, the very young pre-Cranky settled in with a bunch of friends and a couple of huge tubs of popcorn -- and this was back when you still got real butter, which means I'm probably due for a heart attack any minute now -- and was scared silly. Second time out, same setting, same friends, someone in the theater started laughing at Linda Blair's antics on the screen. Once that happened, the theater rocked with laughter for the rest of the show.
Which brings us to Jan De Bont's The Haunting, which invokes so many horror film clichés that you can't help yourself from laughing out loud.
Three guinea pigs are brought to Hill House to participate in what they think is a test of sleeping disorders, conducted by Dr. David Marrow (Liam Neeson), who really just wants to watch what happens when they're all scared silly by scary stories in a big spooky house. They are 1) Eleanor (Lili Taylor), a quiet sensitive girl who has lived in servitude to her dying mother for the previous eleven years. Now that mom is dead, her sister is selling off the apartment and putting her out on the street. 2) Theo (Catherine Zeta-Jones) a bisexual artist whose taste in clothing had the audience in stitches <insert rimshot here>. 3) Luke (Owen Wilson), a wise cracking blonde guy who you just know isn't going to make it to the end of the flick.
This merry band is locked in tight, chains and padlocks on the gates, every night by caretaker (Bruce Dern) and his wife (Marian Seldes) who live nine miles away, in town, where no one will come to help you, where no one can hear you scream and no one will come to help you. At night. You get the idea 'cuz you've heard all the clichés before. Cranky thought, having tremendously enjoyed De Bont's Speed and Twister, that the director was setting us up for a slam it down your throat scare in the last act. He might've been able to pull it off had the script made any sense, which it doesn't.
The scary story goes like this: 19th century textile magnate Hugh Crane and his wife Renee never had children. Mrs. Crane committed suicide after a number of still births drove her batty. Hugh kept building additions to his mansion, to house the children he would never have. In the present, Nell finds a book listing Hugh's workers and hundreds of crossed out entries of children who died. She follows bloody baby footprints in the halls and finds skulls buried beneath the fireplace. She starts raving about a woman named Caroline, Hugh's second wife.
How she knows there was a second wife, since we're told there wasn't one, is not based in anything factual, but she says it enough times that becomes real. This little revelation means that Caroline was her great-grandmother (though twenty minutes Hugh is just plain grandpa, so you figure that out. To me, it's patently ridiculous).
Finally, in the last half hour, De Bont unleashes the effects. They are very cool looking, but carry little weight 'cuz the story has not built up to a terror of epic proportions. I could make you a list of stupendously funny dialog lines in this last section, and still wouldn't be able to tell you if the joke was supposed to be there, or if it was a coincidence of dumb line and worse acting.
On average, a first run movie ticket will run you Eight Bucks. Were Cranky able to set his own price to The Haunting, he would have paid...
$1.00
Blair Witch Project bored the snot out of me but it got $1 for effort. This buck is for the effects and the inadvertent jollies. Both should be passed by.
 |
Click to buy films starring Liam Neeson |
| Click to buy films starring Catherine Zeta-Jones | |
| Click to buy films starring Lili Taylor |
| |
BUY THE LATEST DVDs |
|
 Star Wars Trilogy (Widescreen) DVD (Full Screen) |
 Lord of the Rings Trilogy DVD |
 Marx Bros collection |
 Alfred Hitchcock Collection |
|
|
We're Kidlet Safe
Search engine
by FreeFind
click to search site
Now in
Release:
The Band's Visit
Definitely Maybe
Hottie and the Nottie
In Bruges
Iron Man
Be Kind Rewind
Rambo
Cloverfield
Mad Money
U2 3D
28 Weeks Later
Black
Book
Bourne Ultimatum
Brooklyn
Rules
Death at a Funeral
Evening
The
Ex
Fido
Georgia Rule
Grindhouse
Hairspray
Harry Potter - Phoenix
The Hoax
Hot Rod
I Know Who Killed Me
La Vie en Rose
License to Wed
Live
Free or Die Hard
Mr. Brooks
Next
No Reservatons
Ocean's Thirteen
Perfect Stranger
Pirates of Caribbean
Ratatouille
Rescue Dawn
Rush Hour 3
Severance
Sicko
Simpsons Movie
Slow Burn
Snow Cake
Spider-Man 3
Stardust
DVDs
on Sale:
300
Alice
in Wonderland
Batman
Begins
Bambi
Beauty
and the Beast
Blade
Runner
Bridge to Terabithia
Charlie
+ Chocolate Factory
Cinderella
E.T.
Fantastic
Four
Forrest
Gump
Gone
With the Wind
Harry
Potter yrs 1-3 set
Harry
Potter Azkaban
The
Incredibles
Indiana
Jones trilogy
The
Lion King
Lord
of Rings 12 discs
Mary
Poppins 40th LE
Ultimate
Matrix set
Miss Potter
Monty
Python - Grail
Napoleon
Dynamite
Pirates of the Caribbean
Pirates of the Caribbean 2
Shrek
Shrek
2
Sin
City
Sleeping
Beauty
South
Park Movie
Spider-Man
Spider-Man
2
Star
Wars Ep. 1
Star
Wars Ep. 2
Star
Wars 3 Full Screen
Star
Wars 3 l'box
Star
Wars Trilogy (4-6)
The
Island
War
of the Worlds
X-Men
X-Men
2