Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg share the same taste in horror films: 60 years old and without jumpscares, this classic is their favorite

News culture Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg share similar tastes in horror films: 60 years old and without jumpscares, this classic is their favorite

Scorsese and Spielberg agree: The Haunting is their favorite horror film

Martin Scorsese et Steven Spielberg are two of the most influential American filmmakers, and they are responsible for a large number of cult feature films. One directed Taxi Driver, The Goodfellas, The Delinquents or The wolf of Wall Street et Killers of the Flower Moonthe other was behind the camera for ET, Jaws, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, Catch Me If You Canto the saga Indiana Jones or We have to save the soldier Ryan. Suffice to say that listing the various awards would take the day and that the accumulation of the box office of their films would give a number going beyond what we can imagine.

These two cinema monsters, however, have very different styles, it is rare to confuse the work of one and the other. However, they both agree on one subject, that of the horror film finding the most favor in their eyes. Interviewed by The Daily Beast and The Guardian, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg immediately placed The Haunting at the top of the list. Directed by Robert Wise and 1963the film titled The Devil’s House with us is an adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s Haunted House novel.

The work has been adapted several times, and it is also the origin of the Netflix series The Hauting of Hill House. If Scorsese loves this black and white film, it is in particular because it manages to generate fear without excess of effects and without jumpscare. We are also talking more about a psychological thriller than a horror film, even if the scenario speaks of paranormal experiences within an old mansion reputed to be haunted.

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Avant The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting !

The staging, the music, the chosen angles and the acting are enough to make it a memorable horror experience. The Haunting has a very solid cast, involving the late Julie Harris as Eleanor Lancean anxious and lonely woman who claims to be haunted by spirits. She is invited by anthropology professor John Markway (Richard Johnson) to visit Hill House, a haunted house in Massachusetts where a series of tragedies have taken place. Also present are Luke Sannerson (Russ Tamblyn), and Theodora (Claire Bloom), a medium by trade.

Eleanor has experienced trauma throughout her life, and over the course of the film, she believes she has found a place of rest in the equally haunted Hill House. The way the experiments are conducted, as well as the way whose character of Eleanor gradually becomes the same as that of the house make it a terrifying production. Moreover, the feeling of fear is reinforced by the imagination, because the haunting is never visible. These are noises, breaths, choice of shots that allow the imagination to work. A cult work in short, hailed by two very great directors.