Curiouser and curiouser. No, that isn’t my summation of the (way too long) American election. It’s a quote from Alice in Wonderland, one of my favourite books of all time, and one which I still re-read every couple of years, discovering new tricks of the language that Lewis Carroll snuck through. I was reminded of it on Monday, when I interviewed Theatre North West artistic director Jack Grinhaus about their upcoming production of Alice in Wonderland. Afterwards, I started thinking about other books or movies which I have read or seen and have either re-read or re-viewed, or have to re-read to re- view in the near future. One movie I have to handle in small doses is The Haunting, a great translation to screen of the Shirley Jackson book The Haunting of Hill House (which I have also read and re-read a few times). I have to handle it in small doses because the original The Haunting, the one from 1963, is one of my all-time favourite horror movies, mainly because it works on the most important organ in the body – the brain. You see very little happening in the movie, but you think there is something happening over there, you know, just out of your line of sight. Wasn’t that door open a few seconds ago? What was that light? And you hear things. Loud noises in the night, sounding like bowling balls being thrown against the wall, and you can see the walls bulging, almost as though they’re about to give way and let whatever is out there in the hall into the room. And then all is quiet. And in the morning, you go out into the hallway, and there are no signs of any damage to the walls. And you wonder if you actually saw or heard anything, or if the house (which has a history, of course) is starting to affect you. One thing the book has over the movie is its ability to let you know what the main character is thinking as things move along. She is the one being most affected by the house, and you can sense what is happening through the words Jackson uses. I would much sooner read a good horror story or novel or watch a good horror movie, one that affects me between the ears instead of in the guts. The only problem is I tend to have an overactive imagination, so any time I read or watch The Haunting, there’s a good chance I’m sleeping with the lights on for a couple of nights.