“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”
Once upon a time in middle school, my friends ditched me on Halloween. It’s one of the those heartbreaking memories that you’re sure will haunt you forever, and it does… at least until the next moment of preteen drama usurps it from memory. For me, that new horror occurred a few hours later when my mom comforted me with a Turner Classic screening of The Haunting (1963), not to be confused with the unwatchable 1999 remake with Catherine Zeta Jones and Liam Neeson. Please don’t confuse them. The former is a technical wonder of an adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, which had the power to scare the internal angst right out of my night with little more industry tricks of the trade than some nifty camera, light, and sound effects. The question is of course (the same we asked of Orson Well’s The War of The Worlds) after ten years since my first watching and over 50 since it was first released, is The Haunting still scary?
The classic chills in “The Haunting” resonated with an only-child of a single working parent: like the creaking of an old house after midnight and the quiet click of a door popping open in an empty apartment. These tropes usually appear in the first quarter of almost every modern horror movie, before the simple terrors are abandoned for an escalating parade of usually bad computer effects and make up. The Haunting, however, sets itself a part from its filmic descendants in the genre in that it doesn’t rely on edge-of-your seat anticipation of the next shot of gore or a 10th jump scare. The Haunting promises and delivers on a constant pressure of an off scene presence that twists the audience as much as it does the characters.
Ah, the characters. After I’ve blathered on about practical and minimalistic effects for two paragraphs, you’d think that the technical methods of story-telling overshadowed the actors and the roles that they play. Not so in The Haunting. The major players are Dr. Markway, a professor with a more than passing interest in the supernatural, rents Hill House to conduct observations of psychic and supernatural phenomena, Luke Sanderson, playboy nephew of the owner of Hill House who is tasked with overseeing the research, and their guests: Theodora “Theo” and Eleanor “Nell” Lance. Both are contacted by Dr. Markway who, through his research, identified events of psychic phenomena in their pasts. The good doctor believes that the presence in the wicked old house will be stimulated by those gifted with a sixth sense.
Theo and Nell as performed by Claire Bloom and Julie Harris, respectively, are two of the most fascinating characters that I have ever seen in the horror genre. Nell was a caretaker for an overbearing mother until the old woman’s death; a life that has readied her for a fragile, inexperienced, and lonely adulthood. Nell excepts Markway’s invitation as her first move toward independence from the shared car and the living room she occupies in her married sister’s home. She has little experience with adults, though she has a more impressive record with the supernatural than any of the other members of the group. Theo, as a perfect foil to Nell, is beautiful, independent, and used to being the center of attention of both men and women, perhaps due to her charisma and extrasensory perception. She agrees to sit in on Markway’s observation at Hill House after separating from her girlfriend. Theo is one of the earliest representations of a explicit homosexuality in American cinema that does not depict a lesbian character as predatory or deviant. Ok, maybe explicit is giving the film too much credit, but you can read more about the character here and know this movie would be perfect for a paper assignment in a gender in film or feminist theory class.
As the talent in the house, the women are the targets nearly all the clearly malevolent taunting while the men, as the audience’s surrogates on screen, can do little more than observe Nell and Theo as both are terrorized by whatever forces lurk in the dark. While Nell seemingly flourishes as an object of attention for the first time, Theo preys upon the woman’s insecurity and fragility in order to push Nell away. Like fast-made friends on the first day of school, their blossoming friendship of one night turns morphs into catty hostility over the course of their stay. If only 12 year-old me had been able to draw this out of the narrative, I could have felt far better about one shitty Halloween night.
Beyond the deteriorating relationship of Nell and Theo, the reason The Haunting is a perfect psychological supernatural story is that its characters are all symbols of how people experience horror. The skeptic young heir sees every creepy statue as pieces of art that he can hock to get his money’s worth out of the old house and is therefore rarely frightened. The doctor is fascinated by a harp that issues beautiful music without a player, but it neither terrifies or unsettles him. Both Nell and Theo came to Hill House with heightened psychic perceptions, but it is only fragile Nell that is driven to insanity after a life of neglect and loneliness. Whether entering a spooky graveyard, a ghostly mansion, or a dark movie theater, hants can do little more than rattle a chain or let out a ghoulish moan. There is terror only in what you bring with you.
Shirley Jackson is an icon, not only as a woman author in horror as legendary as Mary Shelley, but as the creator of many of your favorite horror tropes. Stephen King has cited her as a major influence in all his writing, which can be seen in Carrie and Rose Red, and I encourage everyone to check her out her work
Kaitlyn D
Senior Staff Writer
@deadrabbit92
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“Abandoned,” one of Ray Keim’s free desktop designs from his site “Haunted Dimensions.”
When I was four-years-old I remember my first venture into the Haunted Mansion, and I imagine everyone else in the ride at the time remembers it as well. I was on my dad’s shoulders so I could see better and we entered the “stretching room” with me a good head taller than the crowd. I was so terrified I began screaming and grabbing the tops of random heads around me and they had to stop the elevator to let me off.
I’ve been embarrassed of that moment until I saw actor Jason Segel, who now makes up one-third of the Hitchhiking Ghost trio in Annie Leibovitz’s Dream Portrait series, talk about having the same thing happen to him (well, maybe not the hair-grabbing) causing him to be allowed to escape mid-elevator drop.
Moving on… the year after my original visit I mustered up the bravery to make it through and I was hooked, especially since the New Orleans plantation-style home was so pristine on the outside and so wonderfully eerie on the inside. I knew I wanted to own that house one day.
A few years ago I ran across Ray Keim’s Haunted Dimensions site after visiting the park with my own daughter, and soon became the owner of my own Haunted Mansion…and then some.
Keim, an artist who specializes in CGI, works as a seasonal member of the Entertainment Art and Design Department at Universal Studios Orlando producing graphics, animations and props for shows and events at the parks. He also serves as a graphic designer for Universal Orlando Halloween Horror Nights events, including art for the Halloween Horror Nights web site.
His Haunted Dimensions site is an outlet for his appreciation of Disney’s Haunted Mansion attractions (and other famed haunted sites), as well as paper modeling, digital design and even gingerbread house building.
With Haunted Dimensions recently celebrating more than 2 million hits, Keim said he has been stunned by the site’s popularity since it first hit the cyber-screen in September 2004.
“It went live on the 27th and by the 30th I was amazed that 57 people had already visited it,” he said. “Nine months later I released my first paper model kit. That month I received 21,603 visits! My desire to have my own haunted mansion model was clearly also the desire of a lot of other people; and still is.”
He said the site still continues to draw new surfers all the time, a success he attributes to three things: the sheer size of the Internet, how universally loved Disney’s Haunted Mansion attractions are by people and the fact that people enjoy the satisfaction of making things with their hands.
“It also helps a little that I occasionally release new models, art and blog posts, but I don’t do it nearly as much as I would like,” he said.
For Keim, Haunted Dimensions is a true labor of love as he created it and maintains it spare time offering his model downloads for free. Despite Keim making no money from the site, it comes across with a professional polish that takes it beyond the appeal of a typical “weekend blogger” or fan site.
The graphics are clean and the paper model downloads are meticulously designed.
In addition to models available for all three Haunted Mansion designs (Disneyland and Magic Kingdom’s designs and Disneyland Paris’s ‘Phantom Manor”), modelers can builds models of popular scare houses from Universal Orlando’s annual “Halloween Horror Nights” and famous “haunted sites” including the Norman Bates House and the Amityville Horror home. Look closely in the windows of all these models for a little extra spine shiver.
Of his designs, his Phantom Manor remains the most popular model, in terms of numbers of downloads, followed by Norman Bates’ “Old House on the Hill” of Psycho fame. He said his best guess as to why these are top hits is the Psycho house’s style may be the most “typical” popular culture’s idea of a haunted house.
“In the Phantom Manor’s case, I suspect it has to do with paper and card modeling being a very popular hobby in Europe,” he said. “My favorite model is Liberty Square (at Magic Kingdom Park). It was the mansion that first inspired me to create Haunted Dimensions.”
In addition to Haunted Dimensions, there are other sites offering Haunted Mansion (or haunted mansion-style builds) including the premier Haunted Mansion tribute site Doombuggies.com, where visitors can download their own “Death Certificate.” Fellow modeler Trader Sam’s disneyexperience.com has models inspired by “Nightmare Before Christmas” (including Oogie Boogie’s dice and Jack’s coffin sleigh) and the mansion’s “Demon Clock” as well as build of another macabre Disney favorite, the Tower of Terror Hotel. Disney’s own “Spoonful” site at Disney Family has stylized models of Hitchhiking Ghosts, Hatbox Ghost, Stretching portrait bookmarks and new builds inspired by “Frankenweenie.”
A non-Disney site for haunted structures is “RavensBlight” with a “Toy Shop” of free downloadable, mansions, monsters, masks, games, weapons, coffins and other darkly imaginative items.
Keim is currently taking the site beyond the theme park with his upcoming original design and interactive “progressive model” and story “The Knoll—A Tresspasser at Reeves Hall.”
“As much as I love the Disney haunted mansions and the mansion themes, there is not much left to create that would interest me,” Keim said. “Haunted Dimensions is first and foremost a personal passion of mine and now that I’ve run out of Disney mansions to transform into paper, the logical thing to do is to begin creating my own haunted mansions and themes.”
He said with his extensive experience as a visual online storyteller with Universal, especially in the haunt genre coupled with his propensity to design popular paper model kits, is looking to see this model bring new life into his site. He said The Knoll would be my first attempt at creating an “illustrated environment and back-story” his own haunted house paper model kit.
“My goal is to design several related model kits, which will be released over a period of time via a simple, but spooky illustrated ‘exploration’ of the Reeves estate and house, culminating with
the release of the haunted house model,” he said.
Keim isn’t sure yet how this idea will be received by Haunted Dimension fans, who hail from all over the globe, but he hopes his combination of original design, online storytelling and the thrill of the hunt will be a draw.
“There is no doubt that my own projects will not have the same mass appeal as the Disney mansions and Universal models but there is a worldwide fan base of paper model builders, model train hobbyists, and people who just like new spooky things,” he said. “All I can do is hope that the Haunted-dimensioneers continue to support my endeavors.”
As far as his work with Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights is concerned (an event that has been voted again and again on many sites as the nation’s most popular Halloween park seasonal attraction), he is always impressed at the new ways the event has created to give guests a terrifyingly fun time with “lots of passion and craftsmanship.”
Your own personal mansions. Stock up on cardstock, printer ink and good reading glasses for free paper model downloads including the Liberty Square Haunted Mansion and Paris’s Phantom Manor.
This year’s event will even include atmospheres based on AMC’s “The Walking Dead” and the video game-turned-motion-picture “Silent Hill.”
“For the last six years I have been extremely fortunate to work with the passionate, talented Art & Design team that creates Universal Orlando’s Halloween Horror Nights. The special effects and the use of new technologies are always an exciting part of the attractions but for me the most amazing aspect of the attractions are the spectacular, movie quality environments that are created for guests,” he said. “They start with imagination and a pencil, and end with set builders, scenic painters and décor specialists creating these environments by hand.”
Even in this ever-evolving world of haunted attractions, Keim said the love for Disney’s Haunted Mansions will remain strong for generations due to their universal appeal for guests of all ages and backgrounds.
“The Disney haunted mansions are non-threatening, macabre parties,” he said. “All of the 999 spirits ‘pretend to terrorize.’ None of them are truly scary — OK, the bride is scary — Oh, so is the guy trying to get out of the coffin — And when the Ghost Host screams, but that’s all,” he said. “The effects are brilliantly executed and the mixture of creepy settings and fun-loving ghosts is the perfect mix for a great 5 minute adventure.”
All of Keim’s models, as well as links to his blog and Facebook page, can be found at haunteddimensions.raykeim.com.
Also check out Halloween Horror Night’s online/in-park game “Horror Unearthed” at halloweenhorrornights.com/Orlando.
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