The Haunting on Hill House

In the movie The Haunting on Hill House, the director has several different aspects of creating suspense and fear. One of these ways of creating fear is by the plot. I believe this film is an example of the complex discovery plot. This type of plot has four different phases containing an onset, discovery, confirmation, and confrontation of the monster. The onset aspect of this type of plot is when the audience/characters is given clues that there is something strange and mysterious that is going on but what it is exactly is unknown. In this movie, the audience is given insight of something weird by the fact that we are given the history of the house while the characters still have no idea. An example of discovery is when Eleanor finally has set in her mind that she is the one the house wants, and it will not rest until the hunger for her is satisfied. Obviously, discovery means that someone in the movie has discovered the monster that is creating the strangeness. Thirdly, the confirmation stage is when all of the characters in the movie have confirmed that there is a monster. In this movie, Eleanor tries to persuade the other characters to believe that she needs to stay in the house. She tries to "confirm" that this is in fact what the house wants and she is saving everyone's life if they would just let her stay. Finally, the confrontation phase deals with the confrontation that takes place between the monster and the characters. The argument could be presented in this movie that there really was no "monster" per say, however people have argued that the confrontation could be when the spirit takes over Eleanor's car and runs her into the tree killing her so that her spirit is captured. Also, some people say that the confrontation comes when all of the characters are in the parlor and the house starts to disassemble while they are in it.
Depending on whose view you believe, Tourneur's or Carroll's, one could argue that this film is or is not considered a horror film. According to Carroll, a horror film must contain a monster that is disgusting and threatening. In The Haunting, a such monster is never actually seen on film. However, according to Tourneur, a monster doesn't actually have to be seen to make a film a horror film. I agree with Tourneur simply because I am easily scared and the fear can simply be created by the suspense the director creates in the movie. I believe this is the case in this movie as well. Throughout the whole movie we see creepy statues and old school portraits in almost every scene. Eleanor runs into a statue in the end of the movie while trying to run upstairs to the nursery and is extremely frightened. Also, the group of statues of the "family" are kind of creepy to me in the sense that i feel like they are in a sense "watching over the house." The film being shot in black and white and using shadows and the mirrors in the house and the abnormal camera angles also create the suspense and fear that causes the audience to be frightened.
Due to the fact that a spirit takes control of the car and wrecks Eleanor into a tree, we could say that this film fits into the fantastic marvelous. What this means is that the plot is resolved with the supernatural claiming victory. The fact that the spirit kills her claiming her spirit to stay in the house definitely fantastic marvelous written all over it because the supernatural spirit wins. Also, the spirits in the house win because all of the eeriness and creepiness drive the other characters out of the house.
I enjoyed this film because it was different that other movies that we have watched in class in that we never actually saw a monster. I feel like this helped to create a lot of suspense for me because I kept waiting for a real monster to be around the corner at any minute. Even though it was in black and white, the director was very effective in creating fear. I thought the story line was interesting also, maybe one of the most interesting we have watched besides Cronos.