Forgive me for beating the Shirley Jackson drum again, but the worst remake I’ve seen recently is The Haunting – i.e, the 1999 version, which is a reboot of the 1963 classic. (I blogged about it briefly on Halloween.) I watched both films last month in prepartion for my WSJ article about the Jackson novel they’re based upon. In the piece, I wound up mentioning neither. So now, dear reader, I unburden myself: The original film is good, the remake shows promise but becomes almost unwatchable. It can’t decide whether it wants to duplicate the spooky, stylish atmospherics of the original or devolve into a conventional horror film that includes spectacular special effects and grisly deaths (which turn out to be an inadvertent treat if you don’t care for the actor Owen Wilson). Anyway, you are warned.