"Some houses are born bad!"

Named number one in Martin Scorsese's top ten "scariest films of all time" and featuring high in many lists of classic horror, The Haunting (1963) comes with the kind of high expectations that can prove more of a curse than a blessing: not least in a genre that promises very specific thrills. Directed by prolific editor-turned-director Robert Wise, the movie turns out to be something of a tour-de-force of sustained tension. Despite the fairly elaborate set – the neo-gothic pile Hill House – the film is cleverly economical in its scares, getting great mileage out of sound design, expressionistic close ups, reflections and dissolves. Moreover, it is a plot (adapted from Shirley Jackson's 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House) which chimes well with many reported cases of poltergeist activity, centred – as these phenomena often are – around people experiencing severe emotional stress.

In The Haunting, the main focus of paranormal activity is the unconventionally unprepossessing Eleanor Lance (Julie Harris), who is suffering from a depressive disorder following the death of her elderly mother, of whom she was the principal carer. Invited to take part in a study of ghostly phenomena at Hill House, there is an intriguing ambiguity about the nature of the events that take place. Are they connected to Eleanor's fragile mental state? Is she being manipulated by other participants in the study? Was the house, in fact, "born bad", or, is it at the very least one of those "psychotoxic" buildings that seem to provoke such experiences. Hill House and its grounds have a history of accidental deaths and suicides, detailed in a grim montage at the beginning of the film. The study is led by affable Dr John Markway, already a enthusiastic believer in the supernatural, who has invited a number of people to him. Only three people respond favourably to the request, including the heir to the estate and sceptic, Luke, and Theodora (aka “Theo”), a self-styled psychic medium. Eleanor has been invited on the telling basis that she had been implicated in a documented paranormal experience as a child, but is clearly grieving her late mother and wracked with guilt over her death, for which she feels responsible.

The early sequences involving Eleanor have something of Marion Crane in Psycho about them. Although she has not stolen money, Eleanor is on the run in a different sense, having lied to her family about her whereabouts. As with Marion, we are privy to her anxieties via voiceover: en route by car to the fateful house, there is a sense of foreboding that will be familiar to fans of the Hitchcock movie. Hill House, although somewhat grander than the one Norman Bates “shares” with his mother, occupies a similarly dominate position, glaring down upon approaching guests through its vacant windows. Ironically, we learn that Hill House was built by a certain Hugh Crain 90 years earlier, with two successive Mrs Crains dying in tragic circumstances (one of which by falling down the stairs in another scene that recalls Psycho). Although the similarities between the names is likely coincidental, it adds a little intertextual frisson to The Haunting.

Paranormal activity begins immediately on the first night with – in classic poltergeist fashion – the sounds of footsteps and banging on the walls and doors. The film plants some seeds of doubt by allowing the possibility of foul play, while ratcheting up the tension with great sound effects. The interior décor is densely patterned and ornate, creating an oppressive mood without recourse to shadowy effects. There is also a psycho-sexual subtext, with the suggestively nicknamed Theo seeming to undermine Eleanor’s mental state so as to lure her into her bed. The association of lesbianism with such devious behaviour is likely to upset modern audiences. Yet it underlines Eleanor’s – and to a certain extent our – disorientation and uncertainty concerning the other characters’ motivations, while leaving the door open to the possibility that at least some of the phenomena can be explained as manipulation (notably the writing in chalk that appears at one stage on the wall).

It could be argued that the movie’s refusal to fully commit one way or the other – to affirming the supernatural or anchoring it in Eleanor’s neurosis – creates a narrative knot that is not so easily untied. Indeed, the introduction of Dr John Markway’s wife late in the story seemingly to provide a climatic off-ramp (in today’s parlance) is not wholly satisfactory, even if it is brilliantly executed. In those culminating scenes, Eleanor’s ascent up the spiral staircase in the library is a masterstroke that is as superbly tense as it is technically remarkable: one of those sequences that makes you wonder how on earth they pulled it off. Genuinely frightening and stylish, it is unsurprising that The Haunting features high on Scorsese’s list. It is interesting that most of the films which feature in his top ten should be classic ghost stories as opposed to other forms of horror (body horror, slashers, vampire or zombie movies etc.). In of being actually frightened, I think I share his sensibilities.