SOMEBODY SAY `BOO'? IN `HAUNTING,' STARS GET THAT CREEPY FEELING.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Daily News Film Writer

It's 11:59 a.m., and we're deep in the heart of Long Beach's Spruce Goose Dome, the giant hanger where billionaire recluse Howard Hughes once stored his giant airplane and where director Jan De Bont is today filming his summer spine-tingler ``The Haunting.''

The principals - Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Lili Taylor and Owen Wilson - are shooting a scene where Neeson's professor explains why he has brought the others (his ``test subjects'') to stay in a mansion so creepy that it would make Hannibal Lecter flee to the nearest Motel 6.

Neeson, in character: I just want to understand what keeps you up at night.

Wilson, playing a smart-aleck slacker: I don't get a strong sleep vibe from this house. Why do you need the Addams Family mansion for your scientific test?

And just as Neeson is about to reply, an intruding sound enters the house, an unholy noise born not of De Bont's film crew, but of some foreign, alien source.

It's the neighboring Queen Mary's fog horn, blowing its noontime signal. De Bont's scene is ruined.

``Foiled by a ship,'' De Bont mutters. ``Again.''

De Bont could have been referring to the Queen Mary, or he might have been thinking back to the luxury liner from ``Speed 2,'' his last high-profile summer movie. After directing the successful popcorn spectaculars ``Speed'' and ``Twister,'' De Bont was Hollywood's hottest action director, a man who could make both commuter buses and Holstein cows fly through the air with the greatest of ease.

But the Dutch-born director ran aground two years ago when he rushed the ``Speed'' sequel to theaters without the benefit of a coherent script. The shoot was also plagued by the usual problems associated with filming at sea - uncontrollable conditions, rough seas, stars (Sandra Bullock) nearly drowning ... that sort of thing.

De Bont learned his lesson and vowed his next film would be shot indoors, where he wouldn't have to worry about tornadoes, traffic, flooding or any plague mentioned in the Bible. He would film on a set where he would be master of all the elements.

And with ``The Haunting,'' De Bont has made his controlled set into the star of the movie. The film is the second movie to be made from Shirley Jackson's classic 1959 novel, ``The Haunting of Hill House.'' The house in question is a formidable blend of Gothic, Moorish and Victorian architecture with swirling staircases, high ceilings and a couple of marble griffins that bear watching past the stroke of midnight.

``It's `The Shining' on the set of `Citizen Kane,' '' says production designer Eugenio Zanetti, who created the fantastic afterlife worlds in ``What Dreams May Come.''

And indeed, the ``Haunting's'' house is the kind of place that extends the welcome mat with a little too much enthusiasm. Bedroom walls grope their guests, staircases turn into amusement park thrill rides. All this malevolent mischief comes from the long-dead children of the dormant mansion's owner, youths who died before their time and have plagued the premises for more than a century.

``Everything in the house is alive and breathing,'' Zanetti says. ``Basically, the house has been left alone for 100 years, so it's very lonely and very angry. Wouldn't you be?''

Adds De Bont: ``The sets hearken back to Cecil B. DeMille and also that fireplace scene in `Citizen Kane,' where people in the same room have to yell in order to be heard. The scale is so oppressive that it makes people feel small from the moment they enter. And that does some strange things to the mind.''

``Put it this way,'' Zeta-Jones whispers during a break, ``This set is the last place I'd want to be after dark.''

But ``The Haunting'' could be the perfect dark place for moviegoers longing to exorcise the demons of two generations' worth of predictable slasher movies. De Bont and his producers are taking dead aim at audiences' imaginations, hoping to frighten them with things they can't see as opposed to a parade of spilled guts and entrails. Of course, this being De Bont, he'll show you the ghosts, too. But he'll tease you first.

``If you think about it, the scariest things in life are always the things you can't see,'' says producer Susan Arnold. ``It's like `The Creature From the Black Lagoon.' The scariest part is not when you see the monster but when you first see its hand.''

Arnold's producing partner Donna Arkoff Roth agrees (naturally), saying that she hopes ``The Haunting'' will regenerate the character-driven spooktacular.

``We had a slew of them, from `Rosemary's Baby' to `The Exorcist' to `The Omen,' '' Roth says. ``Lately, though, it's been this serial killer kind of stuff. We thought it was time to rediscover the genre.''

De Bont isn't the first director with whom you associate subtle scaremongering, but, in a way, he has been preparing for this movie all his life. A chronic insomniac, De Bont grew up in a home with a big, dark attic, and when he misbehaved, his parents made him spend the night there to think about what he had done.

``There were all these dark corners where, as a kid, you just knew something was hiding,'' De Bont says. ``And the sounds on the roof were incredible ... the rain, the wind - these noises overhead could have been anything.''

``Even now, living in Brentwood, I still hear everything at night and imagine the worst,'' De Bont continues. ``We keep my children's hamsters in a cage in the kitchen, and all night long they run and run and run. I hear the noise and know it's the hamsters, but then again, what if it's not? All that comes from those nights spent up in the dark attic.''

De Bont has taken his fascination with sound and put it to good use in ``The Haunting,'' using a digital sound bank to store more than 50 prerecorded noises. When the mood strikes, De Bont can push a button and conjure up a ``long scrape,'' a ``loud creak,'' a ``deep groan'' or the ungodly sensation of children moaning. De Bont uses these sounds to keep the actors in the proper state of delirium while shooting a scene.

De Bont's favorite sound effect? ``I like the howling sound,'' he says, eyes lighting up at the thought. ``Although, the gruesome pigs noise is pretty good, too.''

``He's like a little boy with all those noises,'' says Taylor, who plays the most tormented of the test subjects. ``We never know what he's going to do, which, I guess, is precisely the point.''

``The Haunting'' will be the second movie to use the new Dolby Digital-Surround sound system (following ``Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace''), and the cast seems willing to forgive De Bont for their jangled nerves as long as the tension shows up on the screen. Besides, they know he has done worse things to actors.

``You hear about these wind machines on `Twister,' and all those stunts on the water in `Speed 2,' '' Zeta-Jones says. ``You figure, if the worst thing Jan does is scare you with a noise, then you're getting off easy.''

``Don't tell him I said that, though,'' she adds. ``I don't want him to think he's going soft.''

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2 Photos

Photo: (1) Liam Neeson, left, Owen Wilson and Catherine Zeta-Jones are terrified by the ghosts in a deserted mansion in ``The Haunting.''

(2) ``Speed'' and ``Twister'' director Jan De Bont, foreground, on ``The Haunting'' set, says he made the movie, in part, out of a desire to work indoors - away from the elements that affected his previous efforts.