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

[kvz5]

Just on episode two but I’m loving it so far. Based on the comments here, it looks like the quality will be great all throughout.

Gugino is so mesmerizing. There’s something about her that just draws you in.

 

[KaijuDude1992]

I finished this last night and yeah it's really good. I wouldn't call it a masterpiece or the scariest thing ever, but Flanagan does such a damn good job with the direction and the scares. He definitely tapped into his inner James Wan here and it shows. If your a fan of The Conjuring movies you should enjoy it because it is just as much if not more so of a family drama than a horror series, but it works because the performances from the actors are very solid, especially the kids.

Also, my god is Gugino still a babe. Every time she is onscreen there is just something about here that pull you in.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

I finished this last night as well. Wanted to get it done before Daredevil. It's rather fantastic, especially once it gets going after the first 4 episodes. The first 4 are good, but the show gets great from "The Ben Neck Lady" on imo. Great acting, great directing, great music. It really is just one big series of character pieces, but it really works. The directing, especially on episode 6 was fantastic. I love how "Two Storms" was put together a lot like Hitchcock's "Rope". Just a series of long single takes. Both "The Bent Neck Lady" and "Two Storms" were my favorite episodes. This is definitely going on my traditional October watchlist.

 

[Rodimus]

I just finished it, and I feel effected. I love that.

I didn't find it that scary actually, maybe creepy, but thought it was very emotional more than anything else actually.

One of my favourite series of television.

Damn.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Don't know if it was mentioned here, but a lot of the episodes have hidden ghost in the background randomly. They become more apparent as the series goes on, but the creep factor really goes up once you see a pair of random hands under a table, or something refecting in the mirror.

 

[Marvolo]

This deserves a lot of Emmy love. The cast, crew, and Flanagan knocked it out of the park. But I fear Game of Thrones's huge cinematic final season is going to give the Emmy's tunnel vision next year.

 

[squeekness]

Y

This deserves a lot of Emmy love. The cast, crew, and Flanagan knocked it out of the park. But I fear Game of Thrones's huge cinematic final season is going to give the Emmy's tunnel vision next year.

I agree that this was an award worthy show. I can't say anything bad about it.

 

[Sawyer]

First things first: I loved the hell out of this thing. Like, to the point where I almost want a second season even though I know it would be a fool's errand.

Second: I've seen a few complaints here and there that the whole show is a betrayal to Shirley Jackson, but here's the thing... if this had been a straightforward, by-the-book adaptation, I'd feel like I've gotten the whole story and wouldn't necessarily feel the need to revisit it in prose form. With the approach Flanagan took, I feel FAR more compelled to seek the book out and get a completely separate take on the house. People can wring their hands about lack of faithfulness, but I think this show is going to do wonders driving a whole new generation to Jackson's book.

My one complaint, and it isn't even with the show itself but the way Netflix marketed it, would be that that first trailer was almost exclusively Episode 9 material. Gave too much away, in retrospect.

 

[Marvolo]

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.

 

[Sithborg]

Yeah, I would've been pissed.

 

[Marvolo]

Just another example of the quality and how this isnt a stereotypical horror first story. The drama and family is put first. A typical horror film or show would have went with the alternate ending because it is the more unsettling and scary ending. But Mike knew that the family and the story and respect for the viewers was more important than achieving a creepy moment.

And even tho I think the finale was a bit too sentimental and hallmark for my tastes, I did smile when

Spoiler

it showed the family celebrating Luke being sober for 2 years. When I started the season when it first introduced Luke I groaned. I did not want to deal with a junkie storyline. And all the typical baggage that comes with it. But it went a whole other direction. Luke wasnt a deadbeat junkie. Not anymore. He was trying. Really trying. Even risking his own safety and future to help another addict. I started to root for him and wanting him to succeed if for no other reason than to spite his self absorbed siblings. Same thing happened with the dad. Starts out like he became a reclusive absent father but its slowly revealed that he was actually a damn good extremely protective father. And like with Luke all season the other kids doubted him and saw him as a nuisance and a failure. Seeing the dad succeed and get to be at peace with his wife was so satisfying.

To a lesser extent I enjoyed the other siblings ending up better than they were at the start.

So sometimes a bit of hope and happiness is exactly what a story needs.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

First things first: I loved the hell out of this thing. Like, to the point where I almost want a second season even though I know it would be a fool's errand.

Second: I've seen a few complaints here and there that the whole show is a betrayal to Shirley Jackson, but here's the thing... if this had been a straightforward, by-the-book adaptation, I'd feel like I've gotten the whole story and wouldn't necessarily feel the need to revisit it in prose form. With the approach Flanagan took, I feel FAR more compelled to seek the book out and get a completely separate take on the house. People can wring their hands about lack of faithfulness, but I think this show is going to do wonders driving a whole new generation to Jackson's book.

My one complaint, and it isn't even with the show itself but the way Netflix marketed it, would be that that first trailer was almost exclusively Episode 9 material. Gave too much away, in retrospect.

I am so happy I didn't watch the trailers then. Just jumped in.

 

[Marvolo]

I watched the trailers, but it wasnt anything like I expected. I havent been this wrong about a story going in in a long time. Winter Soldier with its Hydra plot maybe the only other time I've had my assumptions and expectations be that far off.

I was expecting the show to be like Episode 9 and 10 by about Episode 3. I figured they would all go back to the house early in the season and the show would be about them trying to survive in the house again. With flashbacks of their time in the house as kids.

 

[Sithborg]

I watched the trailers, but didn't really absorb them. So the season was still fresh for me.

 

[Sawyer]

Don't get me wrong, there were still plenty of discoveries to be made over the season. I only wish they hadn't just given away the root of Olivia's madness before the whole thing even started.

 

[Sawyer]

Also, that minor Russ Tamblyn role was great. I had just assumed Flanagan was a Twin Peaks fan until a Wikipedia search let me know he played Luke in the original Haunting film.

 

[Rodimus]

I hadn't seen any trailers either.

The more I think about this the more I think it is more of a family drama with ghosts, than a horror per se. Really surprised.

Superb television!

 

[Persona]

Finished this last night.

Man, this just destroys most television.

I think it helps that this season is very tightly conceived. It is constructed very much as ONE story, but uses the episodes to its favor in showing us different perspectives and framings of that one story, and how all those facets interlock and complete each other.

Does the show peak around episodes 5 and 6? I mean, yes. In some ways those episodes are kind of the visceral climax and what happens after is a protracted denouement for theme and backstory and moving our characters towards resolution. But let's be real--that mid-season peak is an insanely high peak. The following episodes are still excellent in how they are written, performed, and crafted, and how they continue to weave out the threads of the story in a way that completes the tapestry and gives you the whole picture (while still leaving patches of that story ambiguous enough to really invite further thought/reflection/interpretation). The unusualness of this show's structure is one of the things I really appreciated about it, perhaps because I personally thought it creative and interesting yet still effective.

Thematically and dramatically, this just wrecked me. Maybe having kids is part of that and maybe that's why the episodes continue to work so well for me all the way through, because it sort of leans into this idea of what is our responsibility as parents and how the very act of having children can be sort of a conscious decision to choose to hope and to love even in a world full of darkness (reminded me a bit of Arrival at moments towards the end). If the first half of the season is about using the genre of horror to literalize cycles of trauma and pain and the darkness we inherit, the back half is about the intense struggle of relationship and love to supercede that horror.

The Red Room reveal is understated and terrible and beautiful. I totally get why someone would want more from it but unlike a JJ Abrams mystery box I thought what the series did here was totally earned and worked because it had been built into the fabric of the series right from Episode 1, both in the storytelling and in the ideas that the show was expressing. The quick sequence of shots that reveal some of the nature of the Room took my breath away for their sort of simple, horrible grace. But I also loved how the show didn't try to totally explain what the Red Room was or how it functioned. It gave me enough to satisfy some of the things that the show had set up at the same time it still leaves you with a lot of wonder.

Obviously this show is far from perfect but it's about as tightly conceived and powerfully written, about as emotionally harrowing and engaging (especially anything having to do with Nell, beginning to end), about as technically impressive and gorgeously executed a season of television as I have witnessed. An incredible amount of thought and ability was put into this show, into each episode, each shot (and how each one of those contributes back to the whole)--and the pay-off from that alone dwarfs the seat-of-our-pants standards of so many other shows, even in this "peak TV" era. And I actually loved that at the end this was more a family drama that just happened to used imagery and metaphors from a horror construct. To me, it was a long-form elevation of its influences into something I don't think I've ever seen on TV before.

 

[Kaleb]

Wife is currently watching this, I can hear it in the background, and I'm not sure what it is but for some reason it sounds like a serialized podcast.

 

[JtheDreamer]

I'm 6 episodes in and this show has managed to bore me to death. There has been nothing creepy or scary about it and there's an over-reliance on attempted cheap jump scares. Feels like it's a movie about a large dysfunctional family in the backdrop of a horror film.

Extremely disappointing given all the hype. Only credit I give is to the casting.

 

[Persona]

I guess I could see being disappointed with it if someone's wanting an edgier, more outright horror experience. But I feel like we have plenty of sources for that kind of thing already. This show does something much more unique; It is an expertly written and crafted family drama that uses elements of horror to express its themes. That won't be for everyone, but I couldn't have been more enthralled by it.

 

[Boom]

Spoiler

Can't remember which episode it was, but the ghost of the old man with the cane really creeped me out. There was something very off about him. Like his hands and body were very large but his head was unusually small.

Also Nell's death and the devastating reveal of the Bent-Neck Lady was a punch to the gut.

 

[squeekness]

Spoiler

Can't remember which episode it was, but the ghost of the old man with the cane really creeped me out. There was something very off about him. Like his hands and body were very large but his head was unusually small.

Also Nell's death and the devastating reveal of the Bent-Neck Lady was a punch to the gut.

Agreed on both counts.

 

[kvz5]

I finished this a couple of nights ago and this is my favorite new mini series of the year. Having a family drama revolving around tragedy and its aftermath in the backdrop of a haunted house is brilliant IMO. Misleading maybe but still effective. I’ve never been this captivated and invested in a set of characters in a long while. I love them all (even Steve ) but Luke and Nell are my favorites. I want to give those two a big hug!

The casting is A+ especially the women. You can totally believe that they’re all related. So much so that it was hard to tell them apart in the first few eps. Carla Gugino is just flat out mesmerizing. Her presence is so hypnotic. All of the kids were awesome too. They’re too adorable.

I came for the frights but I definitely stayed for the family drama. Standout eps for me were 4-6 and 9. “Bent Neck Lady”, in particular, broke me.

Spoiler

Can't remember which episode it was, but the ghost of the old man with the cane really creeped me out. There was something very off about him. Like his hands and body were very large but his head was unusually small.

Also Nell's death and the devastating reveal of the Bent-Neck Lady was a punch to the gut.

It was in ep

Spoiler

4 I think! Luke’s story.

The reveal of Bent Neck Lady both broke and amazed me. I don’t think I’ve ever watched a twist like that before. It’s like Lost meets Westworld.

 

[Rodimus]

I'm 6 episodes in and this show has managed to bore me to death. There has been nothing creepy or scary about it and there's an over-reliance on attempted cheap jump scares. Feels like it's a movie about a large dysfunctional family in the backdrop of a horror film.

Extremely disappointing given all the hype. Only credit I give is to the casting.

Que?