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A psychologist lures three insomniacs to a haunted house
under the guise that they'll be participating in a sleep-disorder study. Based on
Shirley Jackson's horror novel "The Haunting of Hill House." With Liam Neeson,
Catherine Zeta-Jones, Lili Taylor, Owen Wilson, Marian Seldes, Bruce Dern, Virginia
Madsen, Alix Koromzay, Todd Field and Lisa Loeb. [2:05]
SEX/NUDITY 1 - Some sexual innuendo; a woman wears a cleavage revealing
slip.
VIOLENCE/GORE 7 - A person is decapitated by a swinging iron lion; also, a
huge iron lion's head nearly hits two people as it swings toward them. A statue holds a
man underwater for a few minutes. A piano wire slaps a woman's eye causing a bloody
cut; blood fills a glass she holds to her eye. A man has a very bloody, deep cut in his
hand; embedded glass is extracted with squishy sounds and we see his bloody hand and a
bloody bandage in later scenes. A painting falls on a couple, leaving a bloody cut on
one's arm. A man crashes his car into gate and hits his head on the dashboard. A
woman is yanked out of bed onto the floor, a woman is "skewered" into place by
poles but is not hurt, glass shatters onto a woman and in two scenes a giant hand and many
smaller hands try to grab people. People are thrown against walls, a man is drawn toward a
fireplace and chairs are sucked from people's hands (as they're trying to break
some windows) by unseen forces. A bird statue and a huge, skeletal ghost attack people
(the people fight back in one scene). A face slap, lots of chases, a woman runs as a
ceiling falls in above and behind her and a man dangles and nearly falls from a great
height. A house comes apart at its seams and we see an explosion of ashes with many skulls
and bones visible. We see a painting that looks like a bloody skeleton's face, a
corpse hanging from rafters and some words and little footprints in red paint or blood.
Blood spurts out of a statue's mouth and into some water, staining the water and a man's
face red. We see some bruises on a man's neck. Lots of non-violent, non-gory but otherwise
unsettling scenes worth mentioning: many "jump" scenes when people or objects
startle others; we hear some noises during the night in many scenes (creaking doors and
floorboards, screams, eerie whispers, doorknobs turning, pounding at doors) and doors slam
shut as people run past them; we see eerie carvings and sculptures throughout a house, a
maelstrom and sculptures come alive and scream and a skeleton sits up abruptly; a ghostly
face is seen at a window and in a ceiling, windows become eyes, ghostly children are seen
a few times (in one scene, a ghostly baby from a sculpture crawls under the sheets as a
woman lies in bed) and a woman's hair is braided by invisible hands.
PROFANITY 3 - A few scatological references and some obscenities. [profanity glossary]
DISCUSSION TOPICS - Ghosts, scientific experiments, delusions.
MESSAGE - Some houses are just bad.
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