The Haunting
Reception

The Haunting (1963)

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External reception

7.4
5 platform(s) · 7 ratings 47,043 votes
7.0/10 1,417 votes Synced 2026-07-21
7.4/10 44,847 votes Synced 2026-08-20
Audience 7.4/10 44 votes Synced 2026-07-19
Critics 7.4/10 Synced 2026-07-19
Audience 8.2/10 Synced 2026-07-17
Critics 8.7/10 Synced 2026-07-17
7.1/10 735 votes Synced 2026-09-12

External reviews

Staff (Not Credited) · Time Out London 80.00/100.00

What makes the film so effective is not so much the slightly sinister characterisation of the generally neurotic group, but the fact that Wise makes the house itself the central character, a beautifully designed and highly atmospheric entity which, despite the often annoyingly angled camerawork, becomes genuinely frightening.

synced 2026-07-19
Staff (Not Credited) · TV Guide Magazine 75.00/100.00

An undeniably effective adaptation of the Shirley Jackson novel and one of the best haunted-house movies.

synced 2026-07-19
Bosley Crowther · The New York Times 60.00/100.00

So it looks as though this film simply makes more goose pimples than sense, which is rather surprising and disappointing for a picture with two such actresses, who are very good all the way through it, and produced and directed by the able Robert Wise.

synced 2026-07-19
Staff (Not Credited) · Time 40.00/100.00

In this movie version, directed by Robert Wise, the specter is slightly censored—what's left is just the usual commercial spirit. Whenever it appears, the violins on the sound track start to didder, doors open and shut by themselves, people stare about in terror and squeak: The house, it's alive! The picture, it's dead.

synced 2026-07-19
Stuart Heritage · The Guardian 90.00/100.00

From a potentially creaky, cliche-filled premise (a gaggle of stereotypes are invited to a spooky old house where all is not as it seems), director Robert Wise leads us on a brilliantly unsettling journey.

synced 2026-07-19
Ian Freer · Empire 100.00/100.00

It's one of the most highly-wrought (indeed, overwrought) films ever made, with art direction, editing, sound effects, weird camera angles and lighting orchestrated to fill every frame with hints of the unsettling.

synced 2026-07-19
Keith Phipps · The A.V. Club 80.00/100.00

Sound effects, disorienting camera work, expert editing, and Humphrey Searle's discomfiting score all suggest, without showing, a horrible presence waiting in the wings. Though parts of The Haunting are talky, even that works in the film's favor, as Tamblyn's glib dismissals and Johnson's calm professorial tone are unable to clear up the mystery at its core. After all, the specters that can't be seen, classified, or otherwise contained are the scariest of all.

synced 2026-07-19
Jonathan Rosenbaum · Chicago Reader 70.00/100.00

Robert Wise's 1963 black-and-white 'Scope translation of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House was pretty effective when it came out, aided by Wise's skill as an editor.

synced 2026-07-19
Staff (Not Credited) · Variety 50.00/100.00

The artful cinematic strokes of director Robert Wise and staff are not quite enough to override the major shortcomings of Nelson Gidding’s screenplay from the Shirley Jackson novel (The Haunting of Hill House).

synced 2026-07-19

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