Most critics rate The Haunting highly, and the praise clusters around Robert Wise’s decision to keep the horror unseen. Reviewers return to the same devices: the sound design, the disorienting camerawork, and the patience with which suggestion is allowed to do the work a monster would otherwise do. Several single out Julie Harris as Eleanor, whose vulnerability is credited with giving the scares somewhere to land. The positive notices are strongly positive rather than merely approving.
The reservations are about the writing and the pitch. Variety finds the artistry cannot rescue a screenplay that does not follow through on its ideas, while still admiring how the cinematography turns the house into a character. Time Out thinks the performances often overwrought, and Empire, though admiring, concedes the film sometimes strains. The Hollywood Reporter feels it explains its mysteries too readily. The spread is wide, from dismissal to near-unqualified praise, and two of the earliest notices survive only as citations.