Ode to TV Shows: The Haunting of Hill House
You know it. I know it. My friend Emily knows it. One of the best shows I’ve ever seen is The Haunting of Hill House.
Warning: spoilers ahead. So if you haven’t watched it yet, first off, what are you even doing, and second, go ahead and watch it. I’ll wait.
Okay, ready now? Let’s go.
The Fifteen Minute Test
The first ep is cheating a little bit because Steve is the focus, but I think it does an excellent job in setting him up in relation to the house, as well as in relation to Nell (both as far as oldest and youngest siblings and for their connection to Hill House). We open with a voiceover from Steve, who is reading from his Hill House novel, saying that those who walk in Hill House walk alone (this line also get repeated back to him by one of his clients). The line sticks out to you—how can you walk alone when you’re surrounded by a loving family?
In the opening scene we get true big bro Steve and baby Nellie, and we can immediately see the juxtaposition between them. Hugh swoops in and, being a parent, tells Nellie the Bent Neck Lady is just in her dreams, which Steve repeats to himself in a whisper, foreshadowing his desperate tie to logic.
There’s a medicine bottle on Olivia’s nightstand, which shows us something is up there. The twins’ door keeps opening, presenting us with the spooks. And when Nell falls back asleep, a ghost creeps at her back. The typical filmmaker rule is that if something ghostly happens when a character is not looking, the ghosts are real—so that’s that on that.
The theme/title credits are cool and show us that the house is kind of a maze, that it’s easy to get lost. We also clue in on the red room, which Shirley mentions in her sleep talking. Little glimpses of what’s to come that don’t make sense to us yet.
The seven or so minutes we see Present Day Steve and how he’s completely rejected anything spooky. He basically makes a living on a lie, writing about ghosts but proving to people that they don’t exist. He’s so set on this being fact. We wonder how this is going to tie into the rest of the episode, into the rest of the season.
For the last minute of First Fifteen, we’re back in the past with Nellie, post-another-Bent-Neck-Lady-nightmare. Olivia stays with her and we pan out to see them lying side by side, the two most affected by Hill House. The opposition to Steve.
We don’t get much of Shirley or Theo or Luke, but that comes next in the episode. We know we’ll learn about them, so we’re not questioning their absence. We wonder who the Bent Neck Lady is. My gut thought was that it was the mom. Was I right? Totally wrong? We’ll have to see.
Overall a solid First Fifteen. I remember being totally drawn in the first time I sat down to watch. I had questions, I had thoughts, I had predictions. It wrapped up what it needed to for me in the first bit. We met all our core characters at least once. We learn about the dynamics of the family. We get clues. Great work, Mike Flanagan.
I have lots of thoughts about this show, and I could talk about it for a very long time. I recently had a forty-ish minute conversation about its successor—which we’ll definitely get to—The Haunting of Bly Manor.
I’ve compared and contrasted the two, and while I love both, I will say this: Hill House is breathtaking. It’s well-thought out, well-shot, well-acted. It’s chilling and heartbreaking and truly one of the most beautiful examples of cinematography I’ve seen maybe ever (actually, let’s discuss this: what’s top of your cinematography list? One of my others is Midsommar, but the list goes on).
Particularly, Episode 6 (“Two Storms”) is one of my favorite pieces of television of all time. The parallels between the two time periods, the long shots, the movement of the scenes. Oh my, I have chills thinking about it. The talent of the camera operators, the lighting people, etc on the crew is incredible. Everything needed to play out seamlessly, and they all did an excellent job putting it all together. The talent of the actors is equally *chef’s kiss*, especially with the young cast. I already adore little Nellie and Luke Crain, but this episode showed off their mad acting chops. Acting is more than just your screen presence, and they all killed it. I’m sure it took lots and lots of rehearsal, but it paid off!
What I really love about this show is how character-driven it is. Each of the first five episodes follows the children, one by one, detailing their time at Hill House and the present. Instead of having a set block of time and starting over for each person, each one overlaps a bit but overall moves forward in time, so you don’t get stuck in the same stories over and over. You get to see each of the Crain kids ebb and flow with time, both in the past and the present. And while the remainder of the season follows more of a plot structure, it’s still very much in the hands of the characters. They’re all flawed and broken and just trying to find some kind of truth. They’re irrevocably tied to the house, whether or not they know or like it.
It’s been confirmed that each of the Crain kids represents one of the stages of grief, and personally, I think it’s gorgeously executed. Steve is denial, completely clear by his utter rejection of ghosts and the power of the house. As a kid, his lens of logic is prevalent. Being the oldest, his desire to keep the family together is right there, front and center. He’s a good boy. But he’s jaded as hell by adulthood, blaming his father for everything, since that’s the “logical” answer to everything, right? And then he’s wholly convinced his mother and sister’s deaths were the result of mental illness. Steve, honey, mental illness is a bitch, but so it Hill House.
Shirley is anger, cut and dry. She’s angry at her family, where they’re at in life, that all this shit won’t leave them alone. She’s strong, being the eldest girl in the family. There’s a lot riding on her shoulders. And while she’s created a pretty good life for herself in the present, it’s impossible to maintain due to ignoring her past. You can see how much she cared about life in the “Then” scenes, only to see how it’s broken her time and time again.
Theo is one of my favorites. Both McKenna Grace and Kate Siegel play her so flawlessly. I’m in awe, awe I tell you! Bargaining, the third stage of grief is seen here in our little supernatural girl. A true middle child (hey, maybe that’s why I relate to/love her so much), she’s always struggled to find some kind of…well, anything in the midst of feeling everything. How do you deal with that? You bargain. You shut people out. You convince yourself that you can live without things people need. She doesn’t feel belonging, love, or acceptance. She has a good job and she does help people, but what about herself? McKenna and Kate did this character justice to the max. Spectacular performances. Oof, love Theo so much.
Luke. Our little depression stage. Look, I may love Oliver Jackson-Cohen a lot. He’s hot, what can I say. But he played this character so well. Little Luke was loving and warm but also skittish and careful. My heart swells for him. But it’s the Twin Thing: he could always feel Nell’s fear. Where Nell represents acceptance, Luke feels the opposite. The full blow of being haunted by the house. It’s truly heartbreaking to watch the sadness in him. How hard he tries to fight it. But he just can’t.
As I said, Nell is acceptance. She’s really the only one (besides a bit of Luke—it’s the Twin Thing) who understood the house. She always knew it, and she never saw the place for anything other than what it was. And she was haunted by the realest thing of all: herself. But she had the clearest picture (besides Older Hugh and the Dudleys) of everything the house stood for. She never denied it or fought it. Sure, that was her downfall, but what other option was there when no one else understood? She never had a chance.
Holy hell, this is how you build a haunted family!!
Hugh and Olivia were great, as well. Hugh being strong but also blind to the influences of the house. Olivia being caring and having a heart the house saw as the perfect prey. And then Hugh’s secrecy and fear is what keeps his children stuck in their cycles. He can’t release them because he thinks he’s helping by running away. It’s wrong, but my heart still hurts for him.
Olivia did everything she could for her family. She cared just so much about her children. She loved her husband. Like Nellie, her heart was too open and she loved too much, which is why the house targeted her. Played with her. Carla Gugino is a true queen, and I adored her portrayal. She really captured the pressures and stresses of being a mother of five but also how the ghosts exploit her desire to protect her family. What a great performance!
Clearly I love this show. Clearly I care a lot about it. The hidden ghosts are so good! It’s not like a normal ghost movie where everyone matters and that seeing one of them means they’re going to come get you later in the movie. Sure, you do get to see these ghosts later, that they’re trapped souls in the house (whether good or evil), but they don’t interact with the Crains for the most part. Do you ever wonder what the ghosts in a horror movie are doing when they’re not on screen or actively scaring the characters? Hill House shows you. They’re simply around. Haunting the house, slowly projecting onto the characters. Did this make anyone else think of The Shining? While I have thoughts on the movie, the book was excellent. It really showed that the Overlook is what’s sucking the good out of Jack, not that Jack is a bad person. That’s what Hill House is doing to the Crain family. They’re not bad people, the house just brings out the bad in them.
Some of my favorite scenes include:
- Theo and Shirley’s yelling match in the car which leads to Theo’s beautifully tragic monologue about “nothingness”
- Mr. Dudley’s speech to Hugh in the basement about the effects of Hill House on Mrs. Dudley
- Anytime Luke counts to seven
- Nell’s little speech about love to her siblings in the red room
- Olivia’s dream sequence that leads to her holding a knife to Hugh’s neck
- Luke’s rehab story about the Twin Thing
- Obviously the entirety of the sixth episode
Basically, if you’re looking for a show to keep you thinking and looking over your shoulder and falling in loved with flawed characters, this is IT. Right here. Stop, turn on Netflix, and watch!!