diff --git a/doc/syntastic-checkers.txt b/doc/syntastic-checkers.txt
index 7453201e..00e0ccd9 100644
--- a/doc/syntastic-checkers.txt
+++ b/doc/syntastic-checkers.txt
@@ -2749,6 +2749,8 @@ details:
 
     http://community.haskell.org/~ndm/hlint/
 
+Syntastic requires "hlint" version 1.9.4 or later.
+
 Checker options~
 
 This checker is initialised using the "makeprgBuild()" function and thus it
diff --git a/plugin/syntastic.vim b/plugin/syntastic.vim
index ad7358b5..2af130b6 100644
--- a/plugin/syntastic.vim
+++ b/plugin/syntastic.vim
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ if has('reltime')
     lockvar! g:_SYNTASTIC_START
 endif
 
-let g:_SYNTASTIC_VERSION = '3.9.0-32'
+let g:_SYNTASTIC_VERSION = '3.9.0-33'
 lockvar g:_SYNTASTIC_VERSION
 
 " Sanity checks {{{1
diff --git a/syntax_checkers/haskell/hlint.vim b/syntax_checkers/haskell/hlint.vim
index ff8c243b..07ac45d9 100644
--- a/syntax_checkers/haskell/hlint.vim
+++ b/syntax_checkers/haskell/hlint.vim
@@ -13,9 +13,17 @@ let g:loaded_syntastic_haskell_hlint_checker = 1
 let s:save_cpo = &cpo
 set cpo&vim
 
+function! SyntaxCheckers_haskell_hlint_IsAvailable() dict
+    if !executable(self.getExec())
+        return 0
+    endif
+    return syntastic#util#versionIsAtLeast(self.getVersion(), [1, 9, 4])
+endfunction
+
 function! SyntaxCheckers_haskell_hlint_GetLocList() dict
     let buf = bufnr('')
     let makeprg = self.makeprgBuild({
+        \ 'args_before': '--color=never',
         \ 'fname': syntastic#util#shescape(fnamemodify(bufname(buf), ':p')) })
 
     let errorformat =