An elegantly sinister scare movie, literate and expensive (though basically a traditional ghost story), with those two fine actresses Claire Bloom and Julie Harris.

Wise brilliantly uses black and white widescreen to strand his characters in odd-shaped rooms or corridors, making the watcher's eye skitter frantically over the letterbox screen to catch every ingeniously rendered detail.

When The Haunting digs into the internals of its story, summons its spirits and lets them play havoc with cold reason, it has a power and fervor unmatched by any film ghost stories.

The lasting star of this 63-year-old film is the sound design.