| Author | Message | ||
     Jonathan (Jonathan) Username: Jonathan Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.143.178.131 |
Your suggestions please. I'm doing some research | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.26.216.33 |
Well, I guess we needn't mention the obvious ones, so here's a couple of leftfield candidates: The Elementals by Michael McDowell Sweetheart, Sweetheart by Bernard Taylor | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
Novels: House of Leaves (the best ever, for me) Nazareth Hill The Haunting of Hill House - Jackson The Shining - King The House Next Door - Anne River Siddons The Elementals - Michael McDowell The Nestling - Charles L. Grant Shadowland - Peter Straub The Boss in the Wall: a Treatise on the House Devil - Avran Davidson Films: Session 9 The Innocents The Haunting The Legend of Hell House Juon Amityville 2: The Possession Ghostwatch Dark Water The Devil's Backbone The Evil Dead The Uninvited (the one with Ray Milland) The Sentinel Poltergeist I'll add more when I think of them. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
Film: The Changleing. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
Or even, The Changeling. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.26.216.33 |
Tale of Two Sisters? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
Novels: Julia by Peter Straub Phantom by Thomas Tessier | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.26.216.33 |
The House Next Door? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
I mentioned that one, man... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.26.216.33 |
No, I meant the house on the other side. That's even scarier. Weber lives there. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.26.216.33 |
Well, I mentioned The Elementals, you big nancy. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
Book: The Well - Jack Cady. | ||
| Paul_finch (Paul_finch) Username: Paul_finch Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 92.5.34.191 |
Not sure if anyone's mentioned this, but can THE TENANT be classed as a haunted house movie? It's certainly a horror movie, but arguments rage endlessly as to whether it's all in Polanski's mind or is an actual latent evil lurking inside the building. Also ... has anyone mentioned BURNT OFFERINGS? Another 70s horror film cruelly underrated by modern audiences. Bit of a one-trick pony in truth, but it's a scary road getting there. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.26.216.33 |
I've never seen Burnt Offerings. Read the novel, tho. | ||
| Paul_finch (Paul_finch) Username: Paul_finch Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 92.5.34.191 |
Also, what about Nigel Kneale's TV adaptation of THE WOMAN IN BLACK? Surely that's one of the ultimate haunting house thrillers? It's a guilty secret of mine that I'm eagerly anticipating the Hollywood version next year (even though I think it will have to be very good to capture the atmosphere of pure dread that soaks the original). | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.26.216.33 |
Susan Hill - hmm . . . | ||
| Paul_finch (Paul_finch) Username: Paul_finch Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 92.5.34.191 |
Gary ... the film version of BURNT OFFERINGS made the same mistake as the original AMITYVILLE HORROR, in that it looked a bit too much like a TV movie, and back in the day those were looked down on by everyone. But it's got a cast of old reliables: Oliver Reed, Karen Black, Burgess Meredith and Bette Davis, and one slam-bang scary moment which still makes my hair stand on end. It's out on R2 DVD and is worth looking for. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
I almost mentioned Burnt Offerings but haven't seen it in years. The Stone Tape. The Exorcism (1970s BBC play - utterly terrifying, even now) | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
Recent movie: Evil Rising (AKA Sauna). About a haunted bath house. Brilliant. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.26.216.33 |
Ta, Paul! I'll try get it from Love.Film. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
I'm very fond of What Lies Beneath. I know it's glossy Hollywood pap, but I find it very much inspired by the films of Hitchcock. Great fun, actually. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.26.216.33 |
Insidious has its moments. Ah but it's not really - SPOILER - a haunted house film | ||
| Lincoln (Lincoln_brown) Username: Lincoln_brown Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 203.171.197.48 |
'Haunted', by James Herbert. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Not sure if anyone's mentioned this, but can THE TENANT be classed as a haunted house movie? It's certainly a horror movie, but arguments rage endlessly as to whether it's all in Polanski's mind or is an actual latent evil lurking inside the building. Nobody seems to get this film, usually because they haven't read the Roland Topor novel it's based on. The people in the apartment block are a metaphor for the French people, and the story is about their latent xenophobia and capacity for persecution. Trelkovsky is dragged into a 'victim' role and becomes insane, but it's neither 'all in his mind' nor a function of the apartment building: it's a supernaturally heightened representation of how the French treat outsiders. The whole premise of the novel and film is a political metaphor which, if taken literally, is pure paranoia – but which, to Topor and Polanski, had profound historical resonance. It's completely impossible to talk about The Tenant without mentioning the deportation of Jews by the French authorities under Nazi occupation. That's what it's all about, under the surface. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Here ya go... Novels: 1. 'The Haunting Of Hill House' (1959) by Shirley Jackson 2. 'The Turn Of The Screw' (1898) by Henry James 3. 'The Beckoning Fair One' (1911) by Oliver Onions 4. ‘The House Of The Seven Gables’ (1851) by Nathaniel Hawthorne 5. 'The Shining' (1977) by Stephen King 6. ‘Hell House’ (1971) by Richard Matheson 7. ‘The Haunted House’ (1859) by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, Adelaide Procter, George Sala & Hesba Stretton 8. ‘Burnt Offerings’ (1973) by Robert Marasco 9. ‘The House On Nazareth Hill’ (1996) by Ramsey Campbell 10. 'The Amityville Horror' (1977) by Jay Anson Films: 1. 'The Shining' (1980) by Stanley Kubrick 2. 'The Innocents' (1961) by Jack Clayton 3. 'The Haunting' (1963) by Robert Wise 4. ‘Rebecca’ (1940) by Alfred Hitchcock 5. 'The Changeling' (1980) by Peter Medak 6. 'Dark Water' (2002) by Hideo Nakata 7. ‘The Uninvited’ (1944) by Lewis Allen 8. 'Ju-On : The Grudge' (2003) by Takashi Shimizu 9. ‘Poltergeist’ (1982) by Tobe Hooper 10. ‘Haunted’ (1995) by Lewis Gilbert | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.26.216.33 |
Unusually prescriptive there, Joel - is this all the film is about? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
Nobody seems to get this film, usually because they haven't read the Roland Topor novel it's based on. Joel, I get it! And I've read the novel - which is astonishing, btw. I think the film (the book, too) works on many levels, though, rather than just that one. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
"A Haunting in Conneticut" was rather decent, I thought...I'll probably get slated for liking it, but hey-ho. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Haunted house stories are often limited by a lack of thematic originality: they don't get past the notion of an ambient evil without meaning or identity. So, for example, Wakefield's 'The Red Lodge' is quite banal – though his 'The Frontier Guards' is much sharper and more disturbing. My favourite short haunted house stories include: H.P. Lovecraft's 'The Shunned House' – a condensed novel (some 30 pages) that hints at brooding, festering malignity and then takes you right to its source. Robert Bloch's 'The Hungry House' – a young writer's vision of domestic hell, at once archetypal and achingly personal. Ramsey Campbell's 'Napier Court' – a silent scream in which the private soul and the urban environment duet voicelessly, exchanging futile hand gestures as the night comes on. First strong hint that this fledgeling author had fallen out of the Cthulhu Mythos nest into a building site full of smashed-up breeze blocks and assorted forensic. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
'Napier Court' is indeed brilliant. I love a good haunted house story - there aren't a lot about (and the flaws you mention, Joel, are evident in a lot of them), but when you find a good one you feel that frssion of excitement... | ||
| Jonathan (Jonathan) Username: Jonathan Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.143.178.131 |
Gary, may I recommend the forthcoming House of Fear, published by Solaris and available at all good book stores (and, yes, on Kindle). | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
Jon, you had me at H...  Been looking forward to this one. Even though I'm not in it (you bounder!).  | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.26.216.33 |
He's a cunning publicist. He started this whole thread to soften us up to buy his latest antho. A bounder indeed! | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
My latest haunted house story, 'The Row', can be found in my forthcoming Gray Friar Press relesae It Knows Where You Live. (Fewer than 15 copies left now, folks.) Ahem. | ||
| David_m (David_m) Username: David_m Registered: 07-2011 Posted From: 95.147.193.65 |
Zed, great to see someone else who rates Evil Rising (AKA Sauna). I caught it at the first Grimm Up North and thought it was incredible. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
Creepy as hell, isn't it, David? That ending...brrr... | ||
| Paul_finch (Paul_finch) Username: Paul_finch Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 92.5.34.191 |
To be honest, I think I picked up on the subtext for THE TENANT without having read the novel. I understand that the old tenement is a strong metaphor for the 'fortress France' mentality - after all, the hero is a displaced person of Polish origin, and is made to feel alone and vulnerable in Paris because of that, etc. But I think it works on the 'haunted house' level as well. Do the houses have to be haunted by actual souls of the dead? I don't think so. Human evil, madness, paranoia whatever - they're all good grist for the horror movie mill. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.26.216.33 |
If anyone wants sex in a haunted house, contact me. I'm available. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.176.127.208 |
Couple more HPL stories - "Dreams in the Witch House" and "The Colour out of Space " (sort of)... | ||
| David_m (David_m) Username: David_m Registered: 07-2011 Posted From: 95.147.193.65 |
Zed, I thought the cinematography in Evil Rising was stunning throughout and yes, the ending (in fact, the last 30 minutes or so) created an almost overwhelming sense of nihilistic, ancient horror. I loved it. |