If any of you have read "The Haunting of Hill House" or seen the original "The Haunting", then you might not want to see this one. The story is pretty good, but it's not the same story. The only similarities between this version and the original or the book is the house and the names of the characters. This version is about a Dr. David Marrow (Liam Neeson) that decided to do a study on fear in a haunted house. He gets his subjects by saying that this study was a study of sleep disorders. His subjects are Eleanor (Lili Taylor), Theodora (Catherine Zeta-Jones), and Luke (Owen Wilson). They are all basically insomniacs. Ok, so in this version the house is still haunted and the first night goes basically the same as the other versions. Something tries to get into Nell's and Theo's room, but that is the last similarity that I could find. After being scared out of their wits, the house seems to decided that it wants Eleanor. Something writes "Come Home Eleanor" over a picture of Hugh Craine (The person who built the house). You may remember a similar thing happening in the original, but not quite, but I won't get technical now. Anyway... Nell gets pretty scared and things in the house start talking to her. As the story turns out, the house is haunted by children and Hugh Craine. You see, in this version, Hugh never had any children of his own and desperately wanted this house to be filled with the laughter of children. Well, the children died in the house and were buried under the fireplace. As the movie goes, everyone else in the house decides that Nell is insane and tries to force her to leave after she almost gets Dr. Marrow killed. The house won't let them leave, so here is where everything gets very active, and eventually silly. Finally, Luke gets his head loped off and Nell saves the children. That's the end! I was a bit disappointed in this version, it wasn't what I expected which was the original story. The worst part was the end. It was very cheesy and rather abrupt. It was almost like they just needed something happy, so they became overly happy. This story is not a happy one, so it had no need for a happy ending, that's what I liked about it. Anyway, the movie wasn't all bad. I mean, it had Liam Neeson and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and they survived the wrath of Hill House. Even though they completely changed the story and kind of screwed it up, casting Neeson resurrected the film in my eyes. His wonderful acting (as he always does) covered most of the movies bad parts, and the others were covered by Luke's bad jokes. Anyway, if you have read this book or seen the original and loved it, then you might not want to see this one. Unless you are able to ignore the fact that the story is very different. Just keep telling yourself, this should have been called The Haunting 2 or Return to Hill House.

Starring: Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Owen Wilson, Lili Taylor, Bruce Dern, Marian Seldes, Alix Koromzay, Todd Field, Virginia Madsen, Tomy Irwin, Courtland Mead, Hannah Swanson

Director: Jan de Bont

Released: 1999

Time: 112m/1 hour 42 min.