Television The Haunting Of Hill House - Netflix Original

Finished it last night and while it had some great elements and set pieces, it largely felt like someone had a lot of good ideas but no real plan for how to put them together. I found myself utterly bored through large sections of it. And while it was creepy at times, I only actually jumped once. The ending felt like they thought they had a 13 episode order, then realised it was only 10 and shit the bed. Oh well.
 
KirkDuyt said:
Episode 8 has the worst jump scare I have ever seen in my life. I seriously thought I had a heart attack and actually had a tear in my left eyeball :lol:
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My arse left my chair and I don't know how to describe the noise that came out of me.

I'd let me guard down, most of the time it was obvious one was coming and I was ready for it, this one came out of nowhere :(
 
Bubz27 said:
I think it's both. It has to be, right? There are dozens of ghosts in the show. However, the shows definitions of ghosts at the beginning might have something to say about that. Steven says ghosts can be memories, wishes etc.

I think the combination of the ghosts and the mold drives people insane and forces them to think the only way to be okay is to "wake up" and stay in the house ie. kill themselves.

William Hill took a gamble (ayyy) and buried himself in a wall in an effort to keep things out, but they just stayed in there with him. He clearly was in no decent mental state to think that was a solution. Poppy Hill looks like she killed her own children and was convincing Olivia to do the same in an effort to keep them safe.

Olivia was in a deteriorating mental state and the house and ghosts preyed on that.

Two things which I'm still questioning are the hypersensitivity of the girls. Theo's gloves and Olivia's feelings. What part do they play? I see how they fit in the story, but what's the explanation of them?

And the house seemed to affect women more. Poppy, Olivia, Nell. Nell was the one who went missing during the storm. Nell and Olivia were killed by the house. Maybe Hugh was tricked as well, or did he choose himself.
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In the last episode when the dad takes Steve to the house and gets him to open his eyes a bit I think shows that all the children have the same feelings but some of them i.e. Steve and Shirley, deny them and put it down to mental illness. I was convinced that Olivia was actually alive and that the mould had affected Hugh who had killed himself and the children and the house was a construct for Olivia's mind and her way of dealing with the loss of her family. I thought the red room represented her heart which was closed due to the pain and that we were basically inside her breakdown. I thought the ending was a bit dodge. Keep the house there so all could remain. I wouldn't wanna remain with a few psychos and the Dudleys! If I were Steve I'd burn the place down! :)
 
The one that caught me wasn't actually a jump scare, I think it was episode 8...

The episode where the whole family is gathered for Nell's funeral. When the father and others are speaking at the coffin for a while, ghost Nell is in the background the whole time out of focus. Scared the life out of me when I noticed her. Rewound and she was actually there for ages.
 
There’s a long and pretty interesting twitter thread from the creator about the conception and production of episode six, that’s both fascinating, and also kinda part of my (admittedly small) problem with the show..



I mean, from an artistic POV it’s really impressive, but it’s also very evident that they based a lot of their creative decisions for the show as a whole around this one stunt ep (including one of my main bugbears, casting two similarly aged and different looking men as the same character 26 years apart) and while there’s nothing necessarily wrong with cool art for cool arts sake, a part of me can’t help but think, was it really worth it? The show definitely peaked at that point, and got messier after, and the ep in question wasn’t even presented as one continuous shot (which was evidently the initial pitch) so I can’t help but think it’s not really such a brilliant idea to build a whole 10 episode series around one technical mid point showpiece...

Could just be me though.
 
SteveJ said:
I was hoping someone else had watched both, and then tell me how the new series compares in term of quality. :)
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I've been following the thread waiting for this answer too because the film is like the perfect haunted house film for my fragile sensibilites, high quality, lots of really creepy scenes, great characters and only really one jumpy moment. So far after reading reviews the most common feelings towards the show seem to be it's not jump scary with only jump scares, not scary but creepy and scary, boring and interesting and like the film but completely different.
 
I enjoyed the story more than I was scared at any point, bar the jump scare everyone is talking about.
 
Carolina Red said:
Same here. It’s a mystery story to me more than a terror/horror one. Really enjoyed it though.
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Yeah definitely, don't take it too seriously and it's a good watch.
 
Mockney said:
There’s a long and pretty interesting twitter thread from the creator about the conception and production of episode six, that’s both fascinating, and also kinda part of my (admittedly small) problem with the show..



I mean, from an artistic POV it’s really impressive, but it’s also very evident that they based a lot of their creative decisions for the show as a whole around this one stunt ep (including one of my main bugbears, casting two similarly aged and different looking men as the same character 26 years apart) and while there’s nothing necessarily wrong with cool art for cool arts sake, a part of me can’t help but think, was it really worth it? The show definitely peaked at that point, and got messier after, and the ep in question wasn’t even presented as one continuous shot (which was evidently the initial pitch) so I can’t help but think it’s not really such a brilliant idea to build a whole 10 episode series around one technical mid point showpiece...

Could just be me though.
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I’m not sure I understand why it was necessary to cast two similarly aged men to play the dad. Can you explain that?
 
Finally finished. It was decent. Ending was a bit cheesy but it all made sense, which is kinda rare tbh. Most of the time I'm left thinking wtf at the end of ghost stories nowadays. This one was well thought out, and played with themes and things like time, to mix it up. Yea, I think I liked it...
 
Help (please)!

1. How much is Netflix per month?
2. Is there a way for me to view a list of their content before deciding whether to subscribe or not?
 
jungledrums said:
I’m not sure I understand why it was necessary to cast two similarly aged men to play the dad. Can you explain that?
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Seemingly just so one of them could walk into a room just as his past self was also coming down a staircase, and... not much else?
 
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afrocentricity said:
Finally finished. It was decent. Ending was a bit cheesy but it all made sense, which is kinda rare tbh. Most of the time I'm left thinking wtf at the end of ghost stories nowadays. This one was well thought out, and played with themes and things like time, to mix it up. Yea, I think I liked it...
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I'm kind of with this one too, finished it last night. I like the way the story ended overall, just not the way they did it with all that touchy feelings nonsense of the individual dreams because they had very minimal impact and in Theo's case completely pointless (much like her 'power').

As for that single shot episode, I had no idea it was supposed to be that so it really didn't work at all. I usually love episodes like that too, but they kind of screwed it up with all the cutaways.
 
Redlambs said:
I'm kind of with this one too, finished it last night. I like the way the story ended overall, just not the way they did it with all that touchy feelings nonsense of the individual dreams because they had very minimal impact and in Theo's case completely pointless (much like her 'power').

As for that single shot episode, I had no idea it was supposed to be that so it really didn't work at all. I usually love episodes like that too, but they kind of screwed it up with all the cutaways.
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Which episode is that then?

SwansonsTache said:
U 4realz?
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Different type of show...
 
Thought the single shot scene was quite obvious, and pretty well done even if it did make me a little dizzy.
 
I got 5 episodes in then Red Dead came out so naturally any spare second of my day goes into that.

Is it worth me carrying on the series ? I was really enjoying it up until my spare time went out the window.
 
jymufc20 said:
I got 5 episodes in then Red Dead came out so naturally any spare second of my day goes into that.

Is it worth me carrying on the series ? I was really enjoying it up until my spare time went out the window.
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Just watch it.
 
It really picked up in the Bent Neck Lady episode. Still got the remaining five to go but I'll probably finish it at the weekend. It's quite good so far.
 
It's overall a really good series. I finished this yesterday and would recommend it to anyone. It's not just a 'jumpy, scary horror', it actually has a really good story line to it and is an interesting watch throughout. That being said however, it does have a LOT of creepy/jumpy moments so beware!

Episode 4 - Man in the Hat!
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Just come home from work and my mum's watching this show now. Just noticed the door/flap to the treehouse is red.

And when the eldest suggests looking for Luke in the treehouse, Gugino says "Very funny." Because there is no treehouse.

Nice touches, and I'm sure there are plenty when you rewatch.
 
Watched it with the missus over the Christmas break and loved it. Be interesting to see where they go with the next series.
 
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