The Haunting DVD Review

The picture quality is surprisingly soft on the anamorphic 2.35:1 transfer included on this disc. While by no means the worst transfer we've ever seen (in all honesty it doesn't even come close to that), there is a fair amount of fine grain in the image which leads to a 'tizzing' effect on edges and mutes the colour scheme. The opening shot of Hill House is particularly bad, with the darkened tree line seeming to come alive with particles. Considering all the CGI effects employed in the film, you'd have thought DreamWorks would have wanted to show the film off to the best of its abilities.

Now this is one area in which the disc really loses out to the R1 release. The Haunting has long been used as one of the DTS demos of choice by many people, but all we get on this disc is a Dolby Digital 5.1 track. While it doesn't sound too bad on its own, with plenty of use of the surround speakers, when placed next to the DTS track it is horribly muddied, with little of the clarity the latter is so well known for.

If the film itself doesn't bore you to tears, you're more than welcome to check out the two theatrical trailers, and the fairly interesting 20min behind the scenes featurette also included on the disc.