When I first started watching Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House, I out-right hated it. I loved the original novel, which is a classic horror novel, written by Shirley Jackson, that deals with the excursion into a famously (or infamously) haunted house by a team of paranormal investigators. It was turned into a masterpiece of a film, titled The Haunting, directed by Robert Wise, back in 1963. It was then remade into a really shitty movie in 1999 (despite having a great cast, the remake was pretty bad). This time, Netflix has turned The Haunting of Hill House into a ten episode mini-series, and they’ve made some major changes, which was why I initially hated the first episode.
Three of the characters from the book who were a part of the paranormal team, Nell, Theo and Luke, have been turned into siblings in the series, now part of a large family that moved into Hill House when they were children. Their parents, Hugh and Olivia Crain (Henry Thomas and Carla Gugino) are hoping to “flip” the house by fixing it up and reselling it for higher than what they bought it for. But as you might expect, Hill House has other ideas.
As I stated earlier, when I first began watching this series, and once I saw the major changes that series creator/director Mike Flanagan had made, I was so ticked off that I swore I would not watch anymore after the first episode. But I was soon wooed back (maybe it was the ghosts of Hill House that called out to me), and by the third episode, “Touch”, I was hooked. Flanagan, who also directed Oculus, has created a touching, emotionally charged story that still remains very chilling and scary--at least up until its last episode.
In jettisoning the paranormal investigation storyline of the book and two films, Flanagan has opened up this new Hill House story while still trying to retain the essence of the original book. And with it being a ten part mini-series, the story has room to breathe, giving the viewer subtle character details and nuances that would be lacking in a typical two hour adaptation. Flanagan is smart enough to even devote entire episodes to specific characters, wisely telling the story from their POV. The story’s running time is divided between the present day, showing the main characters as adults, and in the past, when they were kids still living in the house.
The performances in the series are all superb, with the standouts being Carla Gugino as the mother, Kate Siegel as Theo, Oliver Jackson-Cohen as Luke, and Victoria Pedretti as Nell. For some reason Henry Thomas shares his part as the family patriarch with Timothy Hutton (as the younger/older versions, respectively). Both actors are very good in the role, and could have handled either being aged or de-aged, in my opinion, but it still worked. The Dudleys, the husband and wife caretakers of Hill House, are still here, with Mrs. Dudley being very well-played by Annabeth Gish.
This is an intelligently done horror story that enraptures you within its tale by making you care deeply for the characters that you’re watching. And for anybody who’s suffering or have suffered from grief over the death of a loved one, Hill House manages to speak to you about this delicate subject that is both touching and deeply moving at times (while unfortunately being extremely reminiscent of Six Feet Under in places). However, at the very end, the TV series starts going off the rails with the warm feelings about how the love of family cures everything, injecting this theme even into Hill House itself…which makes sense, because Hill House is just a family of ghosts after all, right? Right?
Nope. Forcing a happy ‘love conquers all’ ending onto these proceedings undercuts the main theme of Shirley Jackson’s powerful novel, which portrays Hill House as being an ever hungry monster that is an evil entity in its own right. Instead of leading up to an enthralling ending where the fractured Crain family come together to fight the monstrous evil at the heart of Hill House, we are given a nice, gentle finale that reminds us that even ghosts have feelings, too (regardless of the fact that they’re murderous dead bastards who actively work to claim the lives of innocent victims). It’s a very wonky and unneeded shift in storytelling that hobbles what is otherwise a well-made series. But at least Jackson’s book, and Wise’s superb film adaptation, still remain with us. For within both the book and the first film, whatever walks within Hill House still walks alone, as it should be. --SF
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