Netflix orders modernized 'Haunting of Hill House' from Mike Flanagan

[squeekness]

I found it more creepy than scary. It takes a lot to really frighten me.

 

[Iceman]

I'm really interested in the characters so far.

 

[squeekness]

It really picks up around episodes 6-7 or so. I was up late because I couldn't stop watching it.

 

[Sithborg]

I would say episode 5 is when it totally grabs you.

And rips out your heart.

 

[squeekness]

Bent neck lady episode.

 

[Rodimus]

Man I loved this show. Beautiful mix of things. Relatable characters you care about and their stories individually and together are great. This has atmosphere and is extremely eerie and creepy. One jump scare in particular got me big time

Spoiler

bent neck lady aka Nell jumping out of the backseat of the car

The end really got me choked up honestly. One the music kicked in (I even looked up the song cause it was excellent). And

Spoiler

Steve talking to his wife and the montage of the family etc.

It’s not just a show for Halloween about a haunted house and being scared. It’s really about this family and all they’ve been through. And the ghosts that haunt them not just literal ghosts but past experiences and things they’ve done in their lives.

Really a must watch Solid 9/10 for me. Some great acting too and the casting of the children and their adult counterparts was excellent.

Well said, echoes my thoughts very eloquently. I said previously it's really a family drama with ghosts.

Superb television .

 

[Broseph44]

Well said, echoes my thoughts very eloquently. I said previously it's really a family drama with ghosts.

Superb television .

Agreed man very much so a drama with horror elements.

 

[Iceman]

Well I got hooked. Halfway through episode 5 already.

 

[squeekness]

Well I got hooked. Halfway through episode 5 already.

Yup. And it only gets better as it goes.

 

[Iceman]

Yup. And it only gets better as it goes.

I fell asleep at some point during 6 but will finish when I properly get up. I need to see how it ends now!

 

[Iceman]

Finished this yesterday. The character work was just great and gripped me from start to finish.

 

[squeekness]

Told you. One of the best shows I've watched in a long time.

 

[Sawyer]

*watches Oculus*

I wonder if this will have a nice, bittersweet kind of ending like Hill House had...

*finishes Oculus*

Oh wow, okay.

 

[Kane52630]

There's a bittersweet ending in Before I Wake.

 

[Persona]

Yeah, I just watched Before I Wake yesterday and, tonally, The Haunting of Hill House probably resembles that Flanagan the most. Unfortunately, Before I Wake has an interesting premise that it can't fully follow through on and characters that are a little flat but you're supposed to be moved by them, so it's probably the weakest Flanagan I've seen yet (but I'd still give it, like, a 6.5 out of 10).

It's interesting because you can really see how elements from nearly all of Flanagan's previous films kind of came together and culminated in The Haunting of Hill House. The imagination and sentiment of Before I Wake, the perception-warping and time-cutting techniques of Oculus, the trauma-drama and Stephen King influence with Gerald's Game, the slow steadicam tension (and Kate Siegel, haha) of Hush, the period setting and lush, gauzy aesthetic of Ouija: Origin of Evil (which I haven't seen yet and need to because I hear it's quite good). And Absentia for getting Flanagan's career started! But, seriously, it's really cool to see how Flanagan's career has sort of built up to this achievement with The Haunting of Hill House, which is just an incredibly detailed, rich, and accomplished long-form opus of horror/drama storytelling.

 

[squeekness]

I don't think I've seen any of those films, lol.

 

[TheFuture]

Nellie.

I knew I knew Luke from something else... Harker in NBC's doomed Dracula series. Great to see him find success here.

 

[Ruth Fisher]

Just finished it. I loved it! I kind of wish i lived in a haunted house now hehe. My fave episode was the one where they were in the funeral home and the flashback of the storm. I think it was Episode 6.

 

[elgaz]

Finished this at the weekend and loved it. Characterisations were fantastic. How they had the 5 siblings represent the 5 stages of grief was genius.

Whilst the whole series was brilliant, Eps 5&6 blew me away - 5 for the big twist revealed at the end, and 6 for how it was shot as a few one-take sequences, upping the tension dramatically.

 

[Hotwire]

I was reading that the original ending was going to be much darker...

Spoiler

They were going to have the part where Luke is blowing out his 2 year sobriety candle shot withe the Red Room's window in the background!

 

[Hotwire]

Finished this at the weekend and loved it. Characterisations were fantastic. How they had the 5 siblings represent the 5 stages of grief was genius.

Whilst the whole series was brilliant, Eps 5&6 blew me away - 5 for the big twist revealed at the end, and 6 for how it was shot as a few one-take sequences, upping the tension dramatically.

Which sibling was which stage?

 

[elgaz]

Which sibling was which stage?

Spoiler

Steven - Denial. Writes books about ghosts and strange going-ons but discredits them and believes his father was behind everything. Even when he sees Nell's ghost with his own eyes he refuses to accept it as anything other than his mind playing tricks.
Shirely - Anger. She likes having control but is outwardly resentful when things are beyond her control - Luke's behaviour, Steven's writing, her anger towards Theo and her husband, and her anger towards Nell for committing suicide.
Theo - Bargaining. She very much does what she wants to do and keeps people at arm's length (Iiterally!). She is always seeking to rationalise situations and get the best outcome possible. In some ways, she is the opposite of Steven.
Luke - Depression. He experienced some of the worst things in Hill House and was ridiculed for it, turning to drugs as a coping mechanism. Even when he tried to get clean he failed, driving him further into his pain and depression.
Nell - Acceptance. Nell accepts what happened to their mother and what the house has done, and eventually returns to it - leading to her death and subsequent reappearance as an apparition. By the end of the series, she (even as a ghost) is the one who has accepted what has happened and tries to help her siblings to move on by forgiving all of them and letting them know they weren't to blame for what happened to her.

I thought it was fantastically written. Despite being a ghost story fundamentally, the series is also about loss and family and moving on - and by personifying the stages of grief (the children) experienced by the loss of someone close (their mother, and then sister) the whole thing is made so much more effective rather than having each individual trudging through the 5 stages individually.

 

[Hotwire]

Spoiler

Steven - Denial. Writes books about ghosts and strange going-ons but discredits them and believes his father was behind everything. Even when he sees Nell's ghost with his own eyes he refuses to accept it as anything other than his mind playing tricks.
Shirely - Anger. She likes having control but is outwardly resentful when things are beyond her control - Luke's behaviour, Steven's writing, her anger towards Theo and her husband, and her anger towards Nell for committing suicide.
Theo - Bargaining. She very much does what she wants to do and keeps people at arm's length (Iiterally!). She is always seeking to rationalise situations and get the best outcome possible. In some ways, she is the opposite of Steven.
Luke - Depression. He experienced some of the worst things in Hill House and was ridiculed for it, turning to drugs as a coping mechanism. Even when he tried to get clean he failed, driving him further into his pain and depression.
Nell - Acceptance. Nell accepts what happened to their mother and what the house has done, and eventually returns to it - leading to her death and subsequent reappearance as an apparition. By the end of the series, she (even as a ghost) is the one who has accepted what has happened and tries to help her siblings to move on by forgiving all of them and letting them know they weren't to blame for what happened to her.

I thought it was fantastically written. Despite being a ghost story fundamentally, the series is also about loss and family and moving on - and by personifying the stages of grief (the children) experienced by the loss of someone close (their mother, and then sister) the whole thing is made so much more effective rather than having each individual trudging through the 5 stages individually.

That makes sense. It pretty much what I was thinking. Thanks.

 

[Marvolo]

Yall may remember I mentioned a while back that Flanagan originally had a different darker ending in mind but changed the ending to be happy. This was the post:

They are definitely going to do a second season. Idk how or if Flanagan will return but Netflix isnt going to let this be a one off.

On another note have yall heard about the alternate ending?

Spoiler

Let's talk about the very end of the season. While the family members still alive come together to celebrate Luke's (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) sobriety, we get a monologue from Steven about how fear and love are the same types of emotion. They're like siblings, both involving the relinquishment of logic and patterns. Why did you choose to end the Crain story this way?

A lot of it is a shared experience we all connected with in the room. It's really hard to resolve horror; it's hard to end stories like this. We had been through so much in the course of writing it. Each of us had dug so deep into our own families and stories to try to inform the show that we all craved a moment of peace at the end.

We toyed with the idea for a little while that over that monologue, over the image of the family together, we would put the Red Room window in the background. For a while, that was the plan. Maybe they never really got out of that room. The night before it came time to shoot it, I sat up in bed, and I felt guilty about it. I felt like it was cruel. That surprised me. I'd come to love the characters so much that I wanted them to be happy. I came in to work and said, "I don't want to put the window up. I think it’s mean and unfair." Once that gear had kicked in, I wanted to lean as far in that direction as possible. We've been on this journey for 10 hours; a few minutes of hope was important to me.

'The Haunting of Hill House' Creator Addresses the Show's Biggest Terrors and Twists

I'm glad Mike changed his mind. That would have been a mind **** but not satisfying at all.

Well it seems that the ending may not actually be happy.

'Haunting of Hill House': Oliver Jackson-Cohen Points to Red Room Clue That Hints Crains Never Made It Out

Now I dont know what to think. Is the cake a lie and did they actually make it out of the room? Or is the cake true and they're stuck in there?

 

[elgaz]

Yall may remember I mentioned a while back that Flanagan originally had a different darker ending in mind but changed the ending to be happy. This was the post:



Well it seems that the ending may not actually be happy.

'Haunting of Hill House': Oliver Jackson-Cohen Points to Red Room Clue That Hints Crains Never Made It Out

Now I dont know what to think. Is the cake a lie and did they actually make it out of the room? Or is the cake true and they're stuck in there?

Mind now slightly blown a little bit