Bring a friend because you won't want to go home alone after seeing The Haunting, one of the most frightening films ever made. Julie Harris gives an otherworldly performance as a saintly spinster with a supernatural past. With Claire Bloom (an urbane lesbian with ESP) and Russ Tamblyn (the wise-cracking heir to the estate), she is invited to Hill House to participate in an experiment by psycho-anthropologist Richard Johnson. Throbbing walls, deafening noises, and the plangent weeping of a little girl soon convince the quartet that they are indeed in the house that Beelzebub built. But what, or more precisely, who does the house want? Fantastic deep-focus cinematography by Davis Boulton adds more than a touch of Val Lewton to The Haunting, Robert Wise's last black-and-white film, based on a novel by Shirley Jackson.--Albert Kilchesty