Haunted

In the silence and the black dead of night comes a whisper, faint, barely perceptible. It sighs, then rises in the darkness and blows past your face, suddenly, caressing you with the icy fingers of death. It disappears into nothingness, leaving you with only the terror and the knowledge that this, truly, is a haunting. Aidan Quinn (Legends of the Fall, Benny and Joon), Kate Beckinsale (Much Ado About Nothing) and Sir John Gielgud (First Knight, Gulliver's Travels) lead the all-star cast in this chilling adaptation of the classic James Herbert novel. When David Ash (Quinn) investigates a haunting at an isolated country manor, strange and horrifying occurrences lead him to first doubt his convictions and then his sanity. As the sordid history of the estate's family is revealed, and David falls in love with Christina (Beckinsale), he begins to see the ghostly image of a young girl calling out to him from an unearthly terror he could never have imagined.

Professor David Ash (Aidan Quinn) is skeptical of the supernatural, yet he is invited by elderly Nanny Tess Webb (Anna Massey) to investigate paranormal goings-on at her country estate. When Ash arrives, he meets her three adult children (Kate Beckinsale among them, who becomes his future love interest) and the family doctor (John Gielgud), all of whom deny anything is going on and claim that Nanny Tess is merely hallucinating. Yet after spending some time there, the professor begins experiencing unexplainable visions that only Nanny Tess, and often only he, sees. Furthermore the ghost of his sister, who died as a child in a drowning accident, begins to roam the estate. Is he imagining it and going mad? Or is the house truly haunted? Adapted by Tim Prager from the James Herbert novel, Lewis Gilbert's highly memorable film is a brilliant haunted-house tale with chilling scenes and an exceptional plot twist. --Bryan Reesman