Just finished reading Jackson's Haunting at Hill House. Does it deserve to be classified as a 'classic' novel? Books in the horror genre are always difficult to raise to that status..it seemed a little heavy handed with the main character's absurd ineptitude with human interaction. Thoughts? Other horror novels that are better quality?
>>7824459
>it seemed a little heavy handed with the main character's absurd ineptitude with human interaction. Thoughts?
never read dostoevsky
>>7824459
First of all OP, I want to unironically congratulate you on reading this source text, and also to state for the record that I have not read it (then why the congratulations?)
You don't sound too impressed with the book OP, but it opens up a multimedia discussion, mostly in movieland but I'll nod back to /lit territory.
If you haven't yet, you ABSOLUTELY SHOULD watch an old B/W movie based on what you've read, simply titled "The Haunting". It was directed by Robert Wise, an old popular Hollywood bigshot who later did The Sound of Music and the first Star Trek Movie, so he could work across multiple genres.
However, there are several other SIMILARLY-TITLED movies worth totally avoiding. The above film adaptation was later redone as an absolutely terrible CG-shitfest circa 1999, I think Catherine Zeta Jones was involved. Avoid avoid avoid, only watch the above.
On the other hand, there are a pair of similarly made-then-remade movies, with redeeming qualities. "The Haunted House on the Hill" is an unrelated work with Vincent Price, with high-camp value. It was later remade with Chris Kattan among others (the release dates, basic premises and titles among all four of these films are confusingly similar), and although also "cheap", it has some inspired/spooky stop-action art going on. Try these, maybe, but ABSOLUTELY NOT the wretched one above.
Finally, the OP got me thinking about female horror writers (Mary Shelley? Shirly Jackson?), but also of the Hellraiser novella The Hellbound Heart, which hews closely to my lit/tv crosspost. In the latter case, the author Barker actually directed a culturally important film deriving from his own novella. I'm not aware of any other career writer who has ever shepherded an original film work in such a unique way, usually it's handed off to someone else adapt, or at the very least direct.
Yes, I certainly thought while reading it that it had the potential to translate well into film. I was unaware that there were any adaptations, I'll have to check that out further.
The novel is quite dependent on the main character's inner monologue to drive the anxiety, claustrophobia, and paranoia that makes this a true example of 'horror' fiction, so again, would be interesting to see how that works in the medium of film.
It's an easy read, if you want to delve into the source text. It's short, simple, and frustrating.
It also has some half-hearted themes regarding suppressed sexuality that don't hold quite the same significance to today's reader as they would have in the 1950s.
>>7824557
OK, interesting. The movie also has a lesbian subtext.
The above /good/ movie is my dad's favorite horror movie, he saw it as a kid and it stayed with him. While describing it to me before I had seen it, he also mentioned that "I didn't realize it when I first saw it, but when I saw the movie again later in life, I realized that there is a lesbian subplot."
