Nell (Lili Taylor) has spent the last eleven years looking after her mother, who recently died. She describes that restricted existence as "purgatory," being caught between the living and the dead. She is not sure what she is going to do next when she receives a call suggesting she participate in a sleep disorder project headed by Dr. David Marrow (Liam Neeson). He has chosen Hill House, a 130-year-old isolated mansion in the country, to serve as the laboratory for his secret intent — to study the process of fear and hysteria. The other two subjects in the project are Theo (Catherine Zeta-Jones), an exuberant insomniac, and Luke (Owen Wilson), a witty fellow who's always on the lookout for new ways to earn money.
This unusual psychological thriller is directed by Jan de Bont based on David Self's screen adaptation of Shirley Jackson's book The Haunting of Hill House. After Dr. Marrow tells the unnerving story of textile baron Hugh Crain, who built the mansion for his family but has no surviving heirs, this creepy castle-like place comes alive in the dark-shaking, rattling, and creaking. The psychological experiment soon takes on a more threatening character, and even Dr. Marrow learns that there is something sinister about Hill House.
Unlike the others, Nell embraces the demonic horror that bursts upon them and her in particular. In the spirit of Mary, the mother of Jesus, she takes it upon herself to rescue some dead children — victims of Crain's obsessive desire to fill his house with little ones — whose souls have been held in purgatory. The only real antidote to fear, she proves, is love.
One of the last places in the world you'd expect to find a portrait of redemption is in a special-effects-driven horror story. But surprises abound in the always unpredictable realm of contemporary cinema.