Lewis Gilbert’s Haunted (1995) is one of those elegant, fog-draped period ghost tales that feels immediately familiar—handsome, atmospheric, well-appointed—yet never quite as stirring or chilling as it promises to be. Sitting in the late-career period of a director best known for shaping British cinema across decades (Alfie, Educating Rita, and a trio of Bond films), Haunted is a curious detour: a genteel supernatural romance wearing the clothes of a Gothic thriller, its pleasures found not in terror but in craftsmanship and star-making potential.
Gilbert brings his signature polish to the material. The English countryside glows with a painterly melancholy; the decaying Edbrook estate feels like a place where secrets seep from the wallpaper; and the film’s structure—rooted in an academic sceptic confronting the irrational—allows Gilbert to indulge in classic ghost story rhythms. But where his earlier work thrived on emotional immediacy and character complexity, Haunted often keeps its characters at an elegant distance. Its chills are tasteful, its reveals measured, its emotional turbulence curiously restrained.
Yet the film holds its greatest historical value in the emergence of Kate Beckinsale. This is the moment she fully announces herself—poised, luminous, and quietly magnetic. As Christina Mariell, Beckinsale blends innocence with a subtle, teasing darkness, foreshadowing the commanding screen presence that would follow in later roles. Haunted isn’t her breakout exactly (that credit often goes to Cold Comfort Farm or The Last Days of Disco), but it’s a pivotal early performance that demonstrates her range within genre cinema long before Underworld made her an international name.
Opposite her, Aidan Quinn delivers a thoughtful turn as Professor David Ash, a man defined by rational armour that Gilbert and the script slowly chip away. Their pairing adds a romantic heat the film otherwise struggles to ignite, helping anchor a narrative that threatens to drift into over-familiar Gothic territory.
The film’s shortcomings are largely tonal. Gilbert aims for a restrained, classical ghost story—something closer to The Innocents than the brasher supernatural thrillers of the 1990s—but the adaptation of James Herbert’s novel leans too heavily on melodramatic twists and over-explanatory reveals. The final act, particularly, gives in to excess at the very moment the film’s strength has been its quietude. You can feel the tension between a director committed to craft and a story eager to indulge in more conventional shock.
The Prognosis:
Haunted remains an enjoyable mid-tier entry in ’90s British genre cinema: undeniably flawed, but handsomely directed, occasionally haunting, and notable for capturing Beckinsale’s ascent at a formative moment. For Gilbert, it stands as a late-career experiment—an elegant but slightly undercooked ghost story that reminds us of his ability to shepherd character-driven drama even when surrounded by ectoplasm, séances, and flickering candlelight.
- Saul Muerte
Surgeons of Horror 