Going back to the earliest one, we travel to the year 1928. The House Of Usher, based on a novel, The Fall Of the House Of Usher written in 1839 by Edgar Allen Poe. It concerns a house whose inhabitants live under a terrifying curse. It was released again in 1960, this time starring Vincent Price, was reincarnated several times, the last in 2005 - a very modernized rendition.
Many mediocre efforts appeared in the ensuing years, but I'll skip to 1944 and a movie called The Uninvited starring Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey. This is the story of a brother and sister who move into an abandoned house. They're enchanted by the old English charm of the place ... until they discover it's haunted.
Let's move on to the seventies and The Legend Of Hell House, starring Roddy McDowell. Three people, a physicist and his wife, and a young woman with psychic powers, move into Hell House with the aim of solving its mystery.
The end of the seventies (1979) gave us a movie I consider a classic of the haunted house genre - The Amityville Horror. Supposedly based on a true story, this movie takes us with the Lutz family into a haunted house on Long Island. It leads us through a sheer reign of terror with rooms filled with flies, ugly demons and an evil spirit that's trying to possess them.
Into the eighties and what I consider the greatest haunted house tale of all time - Stephen King's The Shining (1980.) Some may argue that this shouldn't be classed as a haunted house tale. I think it surpasses the rest. It's not just a room, not just a house, but an entire hotel, and the grounds surrounding it with moving topiary hedges and an eerie maze.
Two movies debuted in 1999. House On Haunted Hill was one creepy movie. A millionaire offers a million dollars to anyone in a group of people who survives a night in a haunted house. The house was once an asylum for the insane. Many of the tenants died horrible deaths. Unfortunately, they've never left.
The Haunting, also a 1999 release, is an excellent remake of a 1963 movie. On the pretext of doing a sleep study, a doctor lures a group of people to a haunted house for a study of terror.
2001 gave us The Others, tells the take of a woman and her two photosensitive children who move into a darkened old house, and then discover it may be haunted.
2002 and Stephen King brings another haunted house. Rose Red is a terrifying move again involving a group of psychics in a haunted mansion and the evil power they unleash.
Last but not least, as the saying goes, we have 2004's The Grudge about a house that hods an evil curse. Anyone trying to live there dies in a fit of extreme rage. The curse remains and moves on to the next tenant.
These are some of my favorites. I'm sure you have others. Why not visit my forum and tell me about them?
