Mackenzie Clark
Editor in Chief
Silence lay steadily as I sat for 10 hours binge watching “The Haunting of Hill House.” The new Netflix original arrived on Oct. 12, just in time for Halloween. To be perfectly clear, I am not a fan of horror at all, but despite my distaste for ghost stories, this was the best Netflix content I’ve seen all year.
Inspired by Shirley Jackson’s 1959 American gothic horror novel of the same name, “Hill House” begins when the Crain family — parents Olivia and Hugh and their five young children — move into an old mansion. They intend to spend the summer of 1992 fixing up the house to sell it for a profit, but paranormal incidents and a tragic loss bring their plans to a halt and their project at Hill House is left abandoned. The series then unfolds in scenes of the young family in 1992 and scenes of their future counterparts in 2018 dealing with the aftermath of growing up in Hill House and the ghosts they have carried throughout the years.
Over the course of the season, the events of several nights unfold from the various points of view of the Crain family, crafting a well-rounded perspective of each scene with contributions from the voices of unique characters and their individual experiences. In the first half of the season, each episode centers on a specific Crain sibling, giving the viewer intimate access to that character’s past, their memories, struggles and family relationships from a complex perspective. This slow release of information builds the foundation for a puzzle that starts to come together in the second half of season, leaving the viewer racing to the finale, questioning who can be trusted and what really happened in Hill House.
Director Mike Flanagan takes advantage of the 10 episode format of the show to tell the story slowly, expertly revealing information with great attention to detail. Although it is a horror show, “Hill House” is strongly driven by impactful monologues, character building and the complexity of the Crains’ interwoven relationships. Slow building scares created by artful camera pans and thumping music are juxtaposed with the complex relationships, heightening the quiet tension that is present in every scene and creating the tone of a psychological thriller that just so happens to also be a ghost story.
Throughout the show, fluid and haunting visual and auditory effects work to seamlessly blend timelines together, not moving linearly, but forward and backward all at once. Hill House itself connects the past, present and future of not only the Crain family, but the decades of residents that once called it home. The presence of these ghostly figures functions to further connect each timeline, acting as threads of memories that give structure and depth to the Crain family’s story. Brief, chilling sightings of a few of these ghosts occur dozens of times in the background of numerous scenes, going unnoticed as if they are simply another part of the house and, once they are spotted, drawing viewers to immerse themselves further in the world of “Hill House” by rewatching scenes to try to find all of the subtle scares.
Although it’s never directly addressed, “Hill House” also touches on the complexity surrounding conversations about mental health. The characters in the show are impacted by addiction, anxiety, depression, PTSD and the long term impacts of trauma and grief that manifest over and over again in “Hill House” as ghosts of memories, regrets, secrets and wishes. Throughout the show, the theme of belief is central in each character’s timeline, provoking viewers to think about what is lost when they choose to not believe the severity of what someone is going through. These subtle messages are what make “Hill House” so much more than a ghost story. This expertly rendered longform horror series unfolds with purpose, allowing “Hill House” to become a story about being haunted by the past, the process of healing, the inexplicable bonds that hold a family together and what it means to truly come home.
(Photo from Vulture)